SAN ANTONIO — There wasn’t a sense of panic from the New York Knicks when Jalen Brunson limped gingerly to the locker room late in the first quarter of Wednesday night’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals after the Spurs’ Harrison Barnes landed on his right knee.

Nor was there panic when San Antonio, looking fresher and more explosive, built a 14-point third-quarter lead. Perhaps it’s because the Knicks have been on this magic carpet ride for weeks now, having won every postseason game since Game 3 of the first round in Atlanta, a loss that seemingly woke them up and created a playoff monster that has dominated ever since.

Brunson worked himself into Game 1 following a rough start, scoring 13 of his game-high 31 points in the fourth quarter to help the Knicks steal homecourt advantage with a 105-95 win at Frost Bank Center.

It was the Knicks’ 12th straight playoff win, and it had a familiar formula: Fall behind, get within striking distance and then clear the way for Brunson to close.

“Jalen, he was the MVP in the second half. He was huge for us,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “He did what MVP candidates are supposed to do. He carried us home. We put the ball in his hands and he got it done for us down the stretch.”

Brown has routinely been calling Brunson an MVP candidate, railing against this season’s voting, which didn’t see him garner even a fifth-place vote. Eight players received votes, including the back-to-back winner, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whom the Spurs eliminated in the Western Conference Finals.

For San Antonio, guarding Brunson in the fourth quarter proved to be an impossible task, especially since the Knicks don’t seem the least bit uncomfortable on the Finals stage.

“I don’t want to say calmness, but I think we know what we have to do,” Brunson said. “I think we are a pretty together group. Be able to trust each other and still have each other’s back and know that we just have to keep chipping away, chipping away. It’s just a credit to the mentality that we have as a team.”

First, it was Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns who became assertive on offense as Brunson struggled in the first three quarters. Keeping Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, the unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, occupied is a high objective for the Knicks, and Wembanyama hasn’t seen anyone as diverse as Towns on offense.

“For me when I go out there, I try to be aggressive in playmaking,” Towns said. “Early in the game, just you never know what actually the defense is going to give you. You don’t know what is going to unfold, but I just wanted to be aggressive, especially early in the game.”

Towns scored 10 of his 18 points in the third, and the Knicks actually pulled even by the end of the quarter. OG Anunoby kept New York afloat with a torrid start to the fourth quarter, when the Spurs athleticism and speed was threatening to overtake the game.

That left just enough time for Brunson to find his matchups and work his magic. The Knicks attacked the basket when Wembanyama sat for stretches and had him perhaps overthinking at times.

Brunson and the Knicks have been through plenty of stressful nights. In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals against Cleveland, they trailed by 21 in the fourth quarter before roaring back, sending the game into overtime and essentially ending any idea of a threat in the series.

There were the multiple 20-point comebacks against the Celtics in last year’s second-round series, as the Knicks took a surprising 2-0 road advantage before winning the series in six.

Brunson didn’t solely engineer every comeback, but he has often been in the center of it. Game 1 was no exception.

“I think most importantly, knowing we’re on the road, and knowing my teammates have my back, I think that’s the biggest thing in an environment like this,” Brunson said. “The trust they have in me and the trust I have in them, it’s got us to this point. I mean, I’m very thankful for them every single night we go out there together.”

It took 31 shots for Brunson to score 30 points, but the lack of efficiency will get lost in the moment created by Brunson and these Knicks.

“He’s a gamer, man,” Brown said. “In the biggest moments, he shows up, and that’s what MVPs are supposed to do. We put the ball in his hands and said we are going to live and die with him. And he got it done for us, and that’s happened time after time after time. He got to his spots and he made plays.”

The Knicks can head into Game 2 with confidence, knowing they stole the opener after shooting just 41% from the field and 31% from 3-point range. Most important, they held the Spurs to just 2-for-19 shooting from 3-point range after halftime, making the New York comeback possible.

“It’s a position we obviously don’t want to be in, but it’s always a next-play mentality,” Brunson said. “We continue to find a way and just kind of keep chipping away. We knew one play was not going to bring us all the way back but we just kept chipping away.”