he New York Knicks are NBA champions for the first time since 1973, using another epic fourth-quarter comeback to defeat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals and taking the series 4-1.
The Knicks trailed by as much as 16 in the game and nine points early in the final quarter before charging back behind the heroics of Jalen Brunson. New York won 94-90.
A spring of the city coming together in celebration of the Knicks, who at one point won 13 straight games in their journey to the title, has ended in a championship summer.
The tears after the final whistle showed what it meant – not just to the team, but to the city of New York and a fanbase that has been tortured by playoff heartbreaks and decades of malaise for more than 50 years. As the clock ran out, years of pain were screamed out in Frost Bank Center as the Spurs’ home court sounded like it was parked in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
The fourth-quarter comeback was incredibly appropriate. A franchise that has come back from the dead rose once again, just days after producing one of the most incredible rallies in NBA history in Game 4. Jalen Brunson’s 45 points, most of them coming in the second half as he put his team on his relatively diminutive back and carried the Big Apple to a championship that they’ve ached over for decades.
Brunson was in tears after the game, barely able to speak when asked by ESPN what the moment meant.
He squeezed out softly, “(It’s) everything I ever dreamed of.” He was named the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player of the Finals.
