{"id":735404,"date":"2026-06-14T05:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T05:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735404\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T05:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T05:38:11","slug":"new-york-knicks-defeat-san-antonio-spurs-94-90-to-win-first-nba-championship-in-53-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735404\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Knicks defeat San Antonio Spurs 94-90 to win first NBA championship in 53 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Knicks have won their first NBA championship in 53 years after defeating San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the Finals.<\/p>\n

Playing in San Antonio, the Knicks trailed at the start of the final quarter but overpowered the home side to claim the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.<\/p>\n

The Knicks last ruled the NBA world in 1973 when they claimed their second championship.<\/p>\n

The Knicks won the Finals series against the Spurs 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories.<\/p>\n

The largest deficit was 16 points on Sunday AEST, yet Jalen Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.<\/p>\n

Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for the Knicks in the fourth quarter, to be named NBA Finals MVP.<\/p>\n

“I have no words,” Brunson said during the on-court celebration.<\/p>\n

“It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”<\/p>\n

\"Jalen<\/p>\n

Jalen Brunson was named NBA Finals MVP. (AP: Ross D Franklin)<\/p>\n

Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a Finals game.<\/p>\n

The record had been 38 points by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.<\/p>\n

Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart combined to score 27 points.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said.<\/p>\n

“I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Knicks guard Josh Hart celebrates a basket against the Spurs. (AP: Ross D Franklin)<\/p>\n

Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, which got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.<\/p>\n

The Knicks got to the brink of the title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Thursday AEST.<\/p>\n

It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history.<\/p>\n

Game 5 followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second term.<\/p>\n

The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996\/97 season, to lead five Finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.<\/p>\n

The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts.<\/p>\n

A 22-9 run in the second quarter got the Knicks within three points, before Devin Vassell scored just before the half-time buzzer to give the Spurs a 42-37 edge at the break.<\/p>\n

And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective.<\/p>\n

The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a Finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010.<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Knicks have won their first NBA championship in 53 years after defeating San Antonio Spurs 94-90…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,726,146631,12845,590,2656,1666,10549,85,24942],"class_list":["post-735404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-game-four","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}