2026 NBA Champions: New York Knickerbockers
NY Knicks 94, San Antonio Spurs 90
Okay Knicks fans, you can breathe now. The Knicks sure did it in the most suspenseful way possible. You could almost say that they should be referred to as the Cardiac Knicks. Every single game that they won in this NBA Finals series went down to the end, being decided in the final seconds. They overcame double-digit leads by San Antonio in every single one of their victories in this series.
Indeed as a result, a moment that surely many Knicks fans believed might never happen finally came to fruition last night in San Antonio at the end of Game 5. Once again, the Knicks had to come from behind - they were behind by 16 points at one point in the first half - in order to secure a 94-90 win on the road over the San Antonio Spurs to capture the first NBA title for the franchise in 53 years. During last night's broadcast, they put into perspective just how long ago that was. Richard Nixon was the sitting president. The Soviet Union still existed, the Berlin Wall still stood, and the Cold War was still going on. The Vietnam War had not yet fully ended. The Beatles had broken up just a few years earlier, but fans still held out hope for a reunion at some point in time. Post-it notes and the Rubik's cube had yet to be invented. Shaq was just a year old. And I had not been born yet.
That was the world the last time that the Knicks won an NBA championship. Bill Bradley, now a former Senator and even a former presidential candidate, was on that roster. So was now legendary head coach Phil Jackson. Earl Monroe was a part of that title run. And of course, Walt Frazier was the leader and star of that team.
Now, the Knicks have won the NBA title in an entirely different era, obviously with an entirely different cast. But this Knicks team managed to do what no other Knicks team since the '73 team did: bring an NBA championship back home to the Big Apple.
Jalen Brunson, undeniably the team leader for New York, scored 45 points, which now stands as a Knicks franchise record for most points in a playoff game. The 29-year-old native of New Brunswick, New Jersey (home to, Rutgers University, my alma mater) also had three rebounds and three assists. He clearly rose to the occasion, stepping up in a huge way once again, helping the Knicks to finally seal the deal and win the NBA title that had eluded the franchise for over half a century.
Brunson is the kind of rare guy who gets more and more impressive the more you hear about him. At least that was the case with me. He originally was drafted 33rd overall in 2018 by the Dallas Mavericks. He played for them until 2022, when he was traded to the Knicks, after his father became an assistant coach for New York. It was his dream to bring an NBA Championship to New York, a franchise that notoriously had a history of coming close for many years, but not quite being able to win one. I will get into that in more detail in a little bit. In order to help this dream come to fruition, Brunson sacrificed a ton of money - over $100 million - in order to help the Knicks build the kind of talent around him that could help deliver that championship. In the postgame interviews last night, Brunson came across as humble and intelligent, as well as truly grateful to be in the position he now finds himself in. A generally and genuinely decent guy, in other words. Someone you can cheer for with a good conscience, which itself seems increasingly rare in sports.
That made it a bit easier for me to root for the Knicks throughout these playoffs, and especially during this NBA Finals series. You see, my own personal history with the Knicks is a bit...well, strange. I was a fan of the team back in the 1980's. In fact, they were probably my second favorite sports franchise overall, or at least third. The New York Football Giants were my favorite, and possibly the Jets my second favorite (I never saw a problem or dilemma pulling for both teams). Then the Knicks. They were terrible when I first got into them sometime in the early to mid-eighties. But they got better, started making the playoffs every year.
Then Pat Riley, the successful coach of the dynasty Lakers of the eighties, came to Madison Square Garden. The Knicks then had one superstar, Patrick Ewing. Riley seemed a strange fit. I regarded him as very much a product of the 1980's, with his slicked back hair and image of success in sunny southern California. Admittedly, I was not sure that I liked him. But once he came to New York, I began rooting for him, hoping that he could bring a title (or more than one, I even hoped) to the Big Apple.
For the first few years, he looked on pace to do exactly that. They were decent in his first year in 1991-92 and qualified for the postseason. Advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals, where they met the reigning NBA champion Chicago Bulls, of course led by Michael Jordan. Pushed the Bulls to a Game 7, which was not expected. Granted, they did not win that one, but it seemed to bode well for the Knicks franchise that they had gotten that far that fast under Riley. The future looked bright. As a fan, I was excited for the 1992-93 season.
By all rights, it was a successful season for the franchise. They finished with an overall record of 62-20, tying a franchise record set in the 1969-70 season. That was good enough for them to be the top overall seed. They got past Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers (a little more on them shortly) in four, then got past the Charlotte Hornets in five. The Knicks were in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in my life, and they raced off to a 2-0 series lead against the Chicago Bulls. Everything looked great, and I was tremendously excited.
Now here's the thing: all season long, the Knicks had been talking. I heard Patrick Ewing talking about how the Knicks were poling the NBA. Some other players talked openly about how they rejected the label some had given them as the team of the future, because they believed that their time was now. Why wait another year, one asked during an interview session, when we feel we can win it all this year? And certainly, all of that looked justified when the Knicks took that 2-0 series lead into Chicago in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals.
But all of that talk felt almost like a betrayal to me once the winning stopped. And it stopped abruptly that year once the series shifted to Chicago. The Bulls scored decisive wins in Game 3 and Game 4, drawing even. Then the Knicks and Bulls played an intense and close Game 5. There was the Charles Smith, getting his layups rejected four times within seconds with the clock winding down, preserving the Bulls lead (Chicago actually scored just before the clock sounded). Suddenly, the Knicks, who had looked unstoppable just days before, were down 3-2 in the series, with Game 6 to be played in Chicago, a place which the Knicks clearly did not want to play. I held out hope, and the Knicks actually took an early lead. But once the Bulls got going, they were the ones who actually proved to be unstoppable. Chicago won the game fairly convincingly, then went on to complete their first three-peat.
On my end, I probably overreacted, in retrospect. When I said that all of that trash talk felt like a betrayal, I meant it. It seemed to me that if the Knicks had focused their energy on actually producing results on the court, rather than simply talking smack, they might actually have won that series against the Bulls, and likely winning the NBA title (although Phoenix should not be overlooked that season, as they had a fine team also). The Knicks kept on talking, too. Every year, one Knick or another seemed to guarantee that this would be the year. And every year, there was some major disappointment or another in the end.
For all intents and purposes, I almost started to hate the Knicks. I felt that a team that focused so much on talking, and not as much on winning, did not deserve to capture the NBA title. For the most part, I simply wanted them to display some moderation and maturity, but it seemed to me that they never did. So I actually rejoiced when the Knicks began to experience their misfortunes. While the Charles Smith layup incident had broken my heart as a fan, Reggie Miller catching fire in Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals felt thrilling. The Knicks still won the series, but I was happy when the Houston Rockets outlasted the Knicks in the 1994 NBA Finals, which was one of the very best NBA Finals I can remember. Every single game was competitive, decided by less than ten points. New York had some real chances. But in the end, they fell short. I can still remember all of those missed three-pointers by John Starks.
More talk again for the 94-95 season. Once again, the Knicks met the Indiana Pacers, this time in the Eastern Semis. Miller again burned the Knicks in memorable fashion, this time scoring eight points in the final 18 seconds or so of Game 1, including two three-pointers. It was a stunning result, and again I rejoiced. By that point, the Knicks may actually have been my least favorite NBA franchise, or at least second behind the Lakers. I could not tell, but I did not care, so long as neither team won the title. And the Knicks lost that series to the Pacers in seven. Pat Riley, the man I had been on the fence about, supposedly walked off the court after the loss and right out of Madison Square Garden. Out of the Knicks franchise altogether. No, I was not a Knicks fan at that point, but that move seemed to lack any kind of class.
By 1996, the Knicks and all of their talk felt like an afterthought. The big rivalry in basketball seemed to be the Bulls and the Orlando Magic, who had also lost to the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals the year before. When the Knicks met that historically dominant 1996 Bulls team in the playoffs, they managed to earn one win. That qualified them as the only team in the Eastern Conference that managed to even take a single game from Chicago that year, although the Seattle Supersonics would win two consecutive games in the NBA Finals. But the Bulls won the title, their fourth in six years, and their dynasty was clearly back on. Meanwhile, the Knicks seemed largely to fall into almost irrelevance. They were good enough to qualify for the postseason every year (I think), but they never went too far anymore. Nobody was talking about championships by that point.
There would be more, however. The Knicks started to be a factor again in the late-nineties. They got burned again by an incredible three by Reggie Miller in the finals seconds of Game 1 in 1998 against the Pacers, and lost the series in five. But in 1999, with the Chicago Bulls dynasty having just been dismantled following their second three-peat of the decade, the Knicks suddenly caught fire again. They became only the second eighth seeded team to beat the number one seed in the first round. And that team was the Miami Heat, coached by none other than Pat Riley. I was not celebrating wildly, but it felt like Riley got his just desserts against the team he had literally abandoned. The Knicks had a new cast of characters, including Allan Houston and Larry Johnson and Marcus Camby and Letrell Sprewell. Ewing was still on the team, but he was no longer a force, largely sidelined due to injuries and age. That team had serious speed, and they became the first NBA franchise to reach the NBA Finals as an eighth seed. However, they lost the NBA Finals once again, this time to the San Antonio Spurs in five.
The Knicks reached the Eastern Conference Finals once again in 2000, but they again lost to Reggie Miller and the Pacers. And that was pretty much it. They did not seem to compete on that level for a long, long time. Meanwhile, the hated Lakers had obtained Shaq and Kobe, and had themselves a dynasty. I forgot my hatred of the Knicks and began loathing the Lakers come playoff time. The Lakers had their own three-peat, then fell away for a few years, only to return with Pau Gasol, qualifying for three straight NBA Finals and winning two straight in 2009 and 2010. By then, the Lakers had become the only team that I absolutely, positively did not want to see win an NBA crown anymore. The Knicks had gotten bad, and no longer even seemed worth hating.
Déjà vu came when there was yet another playoff series between the Pacers and Knicks in 2013. I rooted for the Pacers, mostly for old time sake. Sure enough, they won. Those two teams met again in both 2024 and 2025, and the Pacers won again, both times. I still was pulling for the Pacers, but no longer hated the Knicks. Overall, the Knicks and Pacers have met often dating back to their first series in 1993. The Pacers have won six of those series, while the Knicks have won three. But remember that the Knicks won in 1993 and again in 1994. Since 1995, the Pacers won all but one of the series between these two franchise, taking six of the seven.
Which brings us to this year. The Pacers went absolutely nowhere this year. They were competitive in 2025, forcing the Oklahoma City Thunder to outlast them in a seven-game series to win the NBA Championship. I thought that they might be a serious contender for the title this year, but injuries plagued them all season. Instead, they were one of the worst teams. But the Knicks were one of the best. And in these playoffs, I found myself actually pulling for the Knicks during playoff time for the first time since the early nineties.
It just so happens that this time around, they actually won it all. The Knicks are the NBA champions for the first time since 1973. Since before I was even born, in other words.
So I realize that some can accuse me of jumping on the bandwagon. Indeed on some level, I guess I did, and will accept any criticism.
All I can say is that the early nineties were a different time. Yes, my reaction might actually have been an overreaction. But remember, talking and making hollow predictions was something relatively new in sports at that time. The only times that I could remember high profile athletes guaranteeing glorious wins were from before my time, with Muhammad Ali in boxing and Joe Namath with the New York Jets over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Also, the 1985 Chicago Bears making a Super Bowl video right in the middle of the regular season. But they were likely the most dominant single season team in any North American sports league that I can remember, and crushed their way to a Super Bowl title later that season. One year after the Knicks lost to the Bulls in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals, Mark Messier guaranteed that the Rangers would beat the Devils in New Jersey after New York had fallen behind in that series, 3 games to 2. But he backed that up as well, scoring a hat trick and leading the Rangers to a comeback win to bring the series back to Madison Square Garden for Game 7, which the Rangers won. They ended up winning the Stanley Cup that year, as well, ending a 54-year championship drought. One year longer than the one the Knicks just ended, actually. In 2000, the Baltimore Ravens did a hell of a lot of talking as well, but they had a historically dominant defense, and won the Super Bowl in convincing fashion (over my Giants, in fact).
Sports has changed these days. Nowadays, teams and athletes talking smack in very high profile ways and guaranteeing championships has become commonplace. It still annoyed me for a while, until it became so routine that even I stopped paying attention to it. In the early nineties, the Buffalo Bills talked about being the next dynasty, the team of the nineties, but never actually won a Super Bowl. The 1995 Pittsburgh Steelers also made a Super Bowl video, and they did reach the Super Bowl, but lost it. The Green Bay Packers also did a lot of talking after winning their first Super Bowl in 29 years, proclaiming themselves a dynasty. One player even predicted an undefeated season for them in 1997. They got back to the Super Bowl, but lost in a big upset, and largely fell into irrelevance. The Orlando Magic of the mid-nineties seemed to think that they were going to be a dynasty, but they never won a single NBA title, either. There were a lot of teams and individual athletes who began to talk smack and predict grand things for themselves, only to fall flat on their face more often than not. Back when I was younger, it felt like that would be an almost unspeakable disgrace. Such hubris, and then to be humiliated by failing to produce results to back up all of that talking. Teams and players with a false sense of entitlement, tempting fate, then failing spectacularly. The 2007 New England Patriots were the greatest franchise in NFL history, right up until they lost to the Giants in the final seconds of Super Bowl XLII. The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors were possibly even better than the Chicago Bulls, dashing off to a historic 24-0 start en route to a 73-9 record, the best regular season that any franchise had ever experienced. But then they lost the NBA Finals to Cleveland. The 1996 Detroit Red Wings set all new records never before seen in NHL history, but lost to the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals. The 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning were the new greatest hockey team ever in 2019, but then they got swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round. The Boston Bruins also looked historically dominant in 2023, winning a record 65 games in the regular season and earning 135 points, both easily records. But they also lost in the first round.
So many teams with a lot of hype surrounding them, who fell from those lofty heights to become objects of scorn and ridicule. You would think that they would learn.
A lot of individual athletes also seem to be taken by their own greatness. How many NFL wide receivers have we seen talking about how great they are, and how their team would surely win all of the time if they only had the sense to throw them the damn ball? Some high-profile baseball players not only eclipsed the old home run record by Roger Maris, but left it in the dust, only to later be disgraced for having used illegal, performance enhancing substances. Lance Armstrong was the inspirational story of all time, overcoming cancer and becoming the greatest cyclist ever, winning seven straight Tour de France titles. Then he admitted to using performance enhancing drugs and far from being a source of inspiration, came to be known as a disgrace. Aaron Rodgers came to the New York Jets and kept insisting that they were going to the Super Bowl, assuring fans to abandon their doubts and enjoy the ride. They never even got close to reaching the playoffs with him as their quarterback.
Even when some athletes are, arguably, possibly the best we have ever seen, their own sense of entitlement often is a major turnoff. LeBron James is undeniably one of the greatest players in basketball history. But I got turned off when I learned that he had a tattoo proclaiming himself to be "The Chosen One" on his back, and by his constant insistence that he is the greatest basketball player in history.
How about a little bit of modesty, of humility?
It became virtually impossible to simply like sports anymore. At least for me. Everywhere you turned, sports no longer felt strictly fun anymore. It became not a break from the real world, but too often a reminder of it. Athletes taking themselves way too seriously became the norm. Some of them actually committed serious crimes. Some former NFL players like Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre, Michael Vick, and Ray Rice come to mind. Surely I am forgetting some prominent names. Other high-profile athletes very publicly and loudly - and with straight faces - claimed to be underpaid, with some even claiming that they need to feed their families. It's a little like an elected leader born into enormous privilege and who never had to seriously worry about anything at all complaining about how poorly he is treated. Only in America in the 21st century.
These athletes make millions every year effectively to play a game, and they tell their fans, many of whom often make modest if not poor salaries, that they need more money to stay with their team. Back when I was a kid, you heard specifics about contract details and just how much athletes on your team actually made only every once in a while. Now, in this era of 24/7 sports news channels, you get all of the details for seemingly every player. Sports leagues seem like major corporations. Franchises leaving their former cities in the dust for greener pastures, often in every sense of that word. That has happened in all four of the biggest sports leagues in North America, and it is never a good look. The naked and transparent greed of these franchise owners makes the often more publicized greed of the players look modest by way of comparison. So with all of the hype, and with too often little to get excited about, and often seeing athletes you once rooted for suddenly being disgraced (some I already named, others I have not, and perhaps am forgetting), you almost get used to being disappointed and disillusioned with sports. Yet another athlete claiming to be the greatest of all time, or complaining about not being paid enough, even though he "earns" obscene amounts of money for playing a game professionally. Yet another team or athlete billed as the GOAT, as absolutely, without a doubt, the greatest of all time, at least until they suffer some final defeat and the hype ends. Or selfish players who are great for the highlight reels, or who foster their own very impressive statistics, but do not actually help their team much. In fact, they often seem to hurt their teams. Stephon Marbury, Odell Beckham, and Terrell Owens come to mind. Guys who seem quite taken by their own greatness and feel entitled to make just obscene amounts of money and often seem not to care about the fans at all. When these guys become the face of sports, it becomes difficult to still turn to sports as just a fun way to take a break from the world.
Which is why I was so impressed by Jalen Brunson and this year's New York Knicks team. They were just fun to watch. It felt, at least for a little while, like sports could be like they were for me in the old days of my childhood. Just a fun distraction from the world. I did not hear any Knicks players talking about this being the year or being the team of destiny, even though it felt like that is exactly what they were from probably the Eastern Conference Finals on. That seemed especially true after this team took a 2-0 series lead after sweeping the first two in San Antonio. It seemed undeniable after they produced the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, overcoming a 29-point deficit to stun the Spurs in Game 4 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. It felt true even when they fell behind by 16 early in last night's game.
Jalen Brunson, for his part, showed some humor about it all. He joked that the Knicks don't always show up on time for games, usually deciding to actually play at 9 pm for a game that started at 8:30. He did not seem entirely taken by his own greatness. He did not complain about being underpaid, as some very high-profile, and very well-paid, athletes tend to do. In fact, he took a massive pay cut, sacrificing $100 million so that the Knicks franchise might have a chance at exactly what they managed to do last night. Namely, lifting the Larry O'Brien NBA Championship trophy at season's end. All he did was quietly go about his business, and he did exactly what he needed to do to finally lift the New York Knicks franchise to that higher level that had eluded them for so long. He in particular made it easy to root for this Knicks team.
Now finally, after more than 50 years of waiting, the New York Knicks are NBA champions. And whether it is debatable whether I deserve to have enjoyed rooting for them or not, seeing this particular Knicks team rise to the top was both memorable and very enjoyable. It reminded me of how much fun sports can be.
What a team! What champions!
The Big Apple should be proud. Finally, after 53 years, its time to celebrate.
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