ADAM DAVIS/EPA
New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns (C) and Knicks owner James Dolan celebrate the victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks.
Knicks win first NBA title since 1973 in five games, after comeback against the Wembanyama Spurs. NBA is increasingly competitive.
Finally! You New York Knicks became NBA champions again, for the first time in 53 years, by defeating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in game 5 of the finals, closing the series with a victory by 4-1.
The New York team, one of the league’s original franchises and a historic symbol of North American basketball, won the third title in its history, after the 1970 and 1973 championships.
Victory once again had the stamp of Jalen Brunson, Finals MVP. In the final game, the point guard scored 45 points, 15 of them in the fourth quarter, and was mainly responsible for another recovery for the Knicks, who ended up losing by 16 points to the Spurs. Throughout the series, Brunson ended up with a average of 32.6 points per game.
Drama. Drama. Drama
The conquest had particularly dramatic contours. The Knicks won all three games played in San Antonio and were one of the most unlikely endings of recent years, marked by successive upheavals.
In Game 4, the New Yorkers had set a Finals record by recovered from a 29-point deficit in the second half, with OG Anunoby deciding the match with a decisive touch towards the end; in game 5, they suffered again at the beginning, as happened in every game in the series, in which they were always trailing by at least ten points in the first period.
Despite the outcome in five games, the final was more balanced than it seems. In total, the Knicks only scored 12 more points than the Spurs throughout the seriesthus equaling the smallest margin ever in a final resolved in five games. Even so, the New York team finished the playoffs with an average margin of victory of 14.9 points — an NBA record.
This morning, Brunson put the Knicks ahead 90-88 with a jump shot with just over a minute to play. Dylan Harper, Spurs rookie and the Texans team’s best player in the match, with 25 points, then missed a triple that could have changed the course of the match. Josh Hart converted a free throw and, despite missing the second, Mitchell Robinson secured the offensive rebound. OG Anunoby increased the lead and the Knicks withstood the Spurs’ final attempt.
Victor Of the fleshSan Antonio’s big star and one of the NBA’s emerging figures, finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks. The 22-year-old Frenchman even tried a three near the end, but missed. When the ball didn’t go in, thousands of New York fans at Frost Bank Center loudly celebrated an achievement expected more than half a century ago.
The title ends a long wait that began after the golden era of Willis Reed, Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Red Holzman. Since then, the Knicks have experienced decades of harsh disappointments and even harsher losing finishes, from 1994 and 1999, and seen notable figures such as Bernard King, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley, Allan Houston, Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony go without a title. The last appearance in the finals before this season dated back to 1999.
And it all happens after a not exactly linear season for the Knicks. The team finished the regular phase in third place in the Eastern Conference, with 53 wins and 29 lossesbecoming the lowest seed to win the title since the 2022 Golden State Warriors.
In December, the New York team won the NBA Cup, precisely against Spursbut then went through a difficult phase, with nine defeats in 11 games until mid-January. The comeback came with an eight-game winning streak and a 23-11 record between Feb. 1 and the end of the regular season.
In the playoffs, the start was also shaky. The Knicks fell 2-1 down in the first round against the Atlanta Hawks, before going on a 13-game winning streak, the second best ever in playoff history, behind only the Warriors’ 15 straight wins in 2017. During that streak, New York outscored its opponents by 273 points, another NBA record, details .
The near future promises a Highly competitive NBA. In the West, Spurs and Thunder should once again be among the favorites. In the East, the Knicks will have reinforced competition from teams like the Celtics, Pistons, Pacers and Cavaliers. But after 53 years, Larry O’Brien returns to the city that never sleeps.
