{"id":637806,"date":"2026-06-14T06:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/637806\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T06:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:07:09","slug":"knicks-win-nba-championship-for-first-time-in-over-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/637806\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks win NBA championship for first time in over 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elizabeth Madigan flew to San Antonio from New York Friday night ahead of Saturday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve been waiting for this, honestly most of my life. The last time the Knicks won, I was 6 months old, and so I can&#8217;t begin to describe how excited I am. It&#8217;s been unbelievable,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I definitely had my doubts. But we did pull it off. Knicks forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This season has represented a stunning reversal of fortune for the Knicks after decades as one of the worst teams in the league. The last time they made it all the way to the finals was in 1999, also against the Spurs, who ultimately beat them. Their last finals win was even earlier, in 1973.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They held a 3-1 lead in the series heading into Saturday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I grew up watching the Knicks. They were so bad for so long,&#8221; said Jake Minicucci while sitting with his friends on the patio of a Manhattan sports bar &#8220;This might be the first time I cry in a very long time, tonight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fans&#8217; anticipation before the game was like a champagne bottle about to pop its cork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This city is electric,&#8221; said Jake Minicucci while sitting with friends on the patio of a Manhattan sports bar. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never gotten so many head nods, everybody knowing we are in it for the Knicks together.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 50-plus year drought was very much on the minds of some Knicks fans including Daniel Brown who said the evening had the potential  &#8220;to be one of the best nights in the history of this city.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ve lived here all my life, I&#8217;ve never experienced anything like this,&#8221; said the 24-year-old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Madigan flew to San Antonio from New York Friday night ahead of Saturday&#8217;s game. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been waiting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-637806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}