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Knicks finally capture their first NBA crown in 53 years
Knowing New York had waited 53 years to see the Knicks hoist the NBA championship trophy, owner James Dolan didn’t even wait to be handed the 30-pound gold-plated prize.
He grabbed it and lifted it skyward with a yell.
“I want to say something to New York,” Dolan shouted. “Hey New York! I’m sorry it took so long! But here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again!”
The New York Knicks are champions of the NBA for the first time since 1973, beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games for this title. The clincher came Saturday night in a 94-90 victory, the Knicks’ fourth comeback win of the series.
The Yankees — the most decorated team in U.S. major pro sports history — haven’t won a World Series since 2009. The Mets haven’t brought a World Series title to New York since 1986. The Rangers last hoisted that trophy in 1994, the Islanders in 1983. The New York Jets haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1969.
None of that matters, at least not right now. The Knicks — who won 13 consecutive games at one point in this playoff run and rallied from 29 points down to win Game 4 of the finals at MSG — are the toast of the town.
“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 on Saturday. “But it’s been amazing.”
It took them 80 years — the Knicks won the first game in NBA history in 1946, three years before what was then the Basketball Association of America started being known as the National Basketball Association — but the franchise has now become the ninth that can say it has at least three championships.
Boston has 18, the Los Angeles Lakers have 17, Golden State has seven, Chicago has six, San Antonio has five, and Philadelphia, Detroit and Miami all have three.
It’s a franchise that has gone through 24 different coaches and more than 400 players since what was, until now, the most recent championship season. Some of the game’s biggest superstars called Madison Square Garden home and couldn’t end the title drought, names like Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Bernard King and Carmelo Anthony.
The Knicks lost a Game 7 in the 1994 finals to Hakeem Olajuwon and Houston, then made a miracle run to the 1999 finals in a shortened season only to lose to San Antonio in five games — the first of what became five championships for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs.
It took the Knicks 27 years to get back to the finals, had the Spurs again standing in their way, and to fully flip the script, it was New York prevailing in five games.
Over a 25-year stretch that ended with the 2021-22 season — not that long ago — the Knicks had the worst record in the NBA. In the four years since, starting with the acquisition of Jalen Brunson from Dallas, the Knicks have the NBA’s fifth-best record.
And now, Brunson — the finals MVP — is the best player on the best team in the world.
“It means the world to me,” Brunson said.
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And this year, as Frank Sinatra said, the Knicks are king of the hill, top of the heap. Some in the fan base grumbled when the Knicks declined to hang an NBA Cup championship banner after beating San Antonio for the in-season tournament title earlier this season. Turns out, the Knicks were just waiting for something better.
So, the 53-year wait is over. It was a very different league, and a very different game, in 1973.
There were 17 teams in the NBA that season, barely half of the 30 that there are now. Teams called places Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City-Omaha and Seattle home then; the league has expanded many times since, adding 13 teams in nine different states, plus Canada and the District of Columbia.
The top salary in the league then was about $380,000, or roughly $2.9 million in today’s dollars. There was no 3-point line then, no multi-billion-dollar television deal, no international players.
The Knicks flew home on a United Airlines flight from the 1973 title clincher in Inglewood, California, and officials at Kennedy Airport expected what was then called a “rabid” crowd of fans present to greet the plane. They braced for “hundreds” of people that day.
This celebration might be a little bigger.
“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.”
(AP Photo Heather Khalifa)
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