The wait is over for New York. The New York Knicks became NBA champions this Saturday by defeating the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 at the Frost Bank Center and closing the Finals with a resounding 4-1. The title ended a 53-year drought and sparked celebration among fans who had been waiting for more than half a century to return to the top of basketball.
The great figure of the night was Jalen Brunson. The point guard scored 45 points and established a new Knicks record in an NBA Finals game, surpassing the 38 points that Willis Reed had scored against the Los Angeles Lakers in 1970. Four years after his arrival to the team, Brunson became the leader of a generation that returned glory to the New York franchise.
The road to the championship was not easy either. In game five, the Knicks overcame a 16-point deficit against the Spurs who tried to prolong the series. It was the fourth time in these Finals that New York managed to recover from a double-digit difference, a sign of the competitive character that accompanied the team throughout the postseason.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart contributed a combined 27 points to back up Brunson on the decisive night. On the San Antonio side, Dylan Harper added 25 points and Victor Wembanyama recorded 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks, although their efforts were not enough to prevent the Knicks from writing one of the most important pages in their history.
With this title the Knicks win the third ring in their history after those of 1970 and 1973, closing one of the longest droughts among historical NBA franchises.
The Spurs, who had denied glory to New York in the last Finals they played together in 1999, could not avoid this time the celebration of a franchise and a city that had been waiting for more than half a century to return to the top of world basketball.
A historic comeback to close the series
The road to the title was marked by epic comebacks. The most memorable came in Game 4 when the Knicks came back from a 29-point deficit to win 107-106 on a basket by OG Anunoby with 1.2 seconds left in what was the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest of the entire season.
New York finished the postseason with a perfect 4-0 record in decisive games, winning them all on the road in what is a reflection of the winning mentality that this franchise has built in recent years. The Big Apple can finally celebrate.