SAN ANTONIO — After more than five decades of waiting, New York Knicks fans finally have something to celebrate. The Knicks claimed the NBA championship Saturday night, defeating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 to secure the title — their first since 1973.
Team owner James Dolan didn’t wait for anyone to hand him the 30-pound gold-plated trophy. He grabbed it himself and raised it into the air with a shout directed at his city.
“I want to say something to New York,” Dolan yelled. “Hey New York! I’m sorry it took so long! But here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again!”
The championship ends a 53-year drought for the storied franchise, and it came in dramatic fashion. Saturday’s clinching win was the Knicks’ fourth comeback victory of the series. Earlier in the finals, the team rallied from 29 points down to win Game 4 at Madison Square Garden.
“Of course I’ve never seen anything like it, because it’d never happened before,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said of the Game 4 comeback in an interview on NBA TV Saturday. “But it’s been amazing.”
Some are calling it the first major professional sports title for New York in more than 14 years — counting only Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA. That said, the New York Liberty won the 2024 WNBA title and New York City FC captured the MLS Cup in 2021. The last time one of New York’s traditional big-four franchises won a championship was the Giants’ Super Bowl victory following the 2011 season.
The Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009. The Mets last won it in 1986. The Rangers hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1994, the Islanders in 1983, and the Jets haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1969.
None of that is the focus right now. The Knicks — who rattled off 13 straight wins at one point during the playoffs — are the talk of New York.
The franchise has now joined an elite group, becoming the ninth team in NBA history to win at least three championships. Boston leads the way with 18, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers with 17, Golden State with seven, Chicago with six, San Antonio with five, and Philadelphia, Detroit, and Miami each with three.
Knicks legend Larry Johnson summed up the moment simply: “I enjoy watching these guys. The Garden is back. … It’s back like when we played and made our little run. The city is behind us.”
The road to this title was anything but easy. Since their last championship, the Knicks cycled through 24 different head coaches and more than 400 players. Stars like Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Bernard King, and Carmelo Anthony all called Madison Square Garden home without ever delivering a title.
The franchise came heartbreakingly close in 1994, losing a Game 7 to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets. Then in 1999, the Knicks made a surprising run to the finals in a shortened season, only to fall to San Antonio in five games — the first of what became five titles for that Spurs organization.
“We didn’t get it done. … I always say the third time is the charm,” former Knicks guard John Starks said.
Starks turned out to be right. Twenty-seven years after that 1999 loss to San Antonio, the Knicks faced the Spurs again in the finals — and this time, New York won in five games, completely flipping the script.
Finals MVP Jalen Brunson, who came to New York after being acquired from Dallas, was the driving force behind the championship run. During a stretch spanning 25 years that ended with the 2021-22 season, the Knicks had the worst record in the NBA. In the four seasons since Brunson arrived, the team has posted the league’s fifth-best record.
“It means the world to me,” Brunson said.
First-year Knicks head coach Mike Brown guided the team to the title in his debut season with the club. He reflected on what the championship means to the city.
“There are a couple of franchises that are pretty iconic just because of the history that they have, the location that they’re in, sometimes even the building that they’re in,” Brown said. “New York is definitely one of the few that you could say that to in all three facets.”
“Everybody goes through their ups and downs. I don’t really think much about the tough times that they had, because everybody has tough times, including individuals. You just want to try the best you can to be a part of whatever you can to bring joy to the city, to the organization. At the end of the day, the chips are going to fall how they fall. I feel blessed, fortunate, lucky, to be a part of what is going on now.”
Madison Square Garden — which has hosted farewell tours from Billy Joel, Elton John, and Harry Styles more recently than it hung a Knicks championship banner — will now add a new piece of hardware to its rafters.
The contrast between this title and the last one in 1973 is striking. Back then, the NBA had just 17 teams. The top salary in the league was around $380,000, equivalent to roughly $2.9 million today. There was no three-point line, no massive television contract, and no international players. When the Knicks flew home from the 1973 title clincher in Inglewood, California, officials at Kennedy Airport braced for what they called a “rabid” crowd — expecting “hundreds” of fans to meet the plane.
This celebration figures to be considerably larger.
“To have the fans that we have in New York City and be able to bring home a championship after all these years is absolutely amazing,” Brown said. “It’s a surreal feeling.”
