{"id":266191,"date":"2026-06-14T06:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/266191\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T06:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:48:10","slug":"knicks-defeat-spurs-to-capture-first-nba-title-in-53-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/266191\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks defeat Spurs to capture first NBA title in 53 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SAN ANTONIO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Jalen Brunson<\/a> and the Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they\u2019re the Champion Knicks.<\/p>\n

For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90<\/a> in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four victories. The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no words,\u201d Brunson said during the on-court celebration. \u201cIt\u2019s everything I ever dreamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"New <\/p>\n

New York guard Jalen Brunson drives in front of San Antonio center Luke Kornet during the second half of the Knicks\u2019 94-90 win Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Darren Abate \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a Finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Lakers<\/a> in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise\u2019s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s surreal,\u201d said Knicks coach Mike Brown, who was hired a year ago \u2014 making him the franchise\u2019s 24th coach since the franchise\u2019s last championship in 1973. \u201cI still can\u2019t believe it\u2019s happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart \u2014 the other two parts of the \u201cNova Knicks\u201d trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same \u2014 combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m feeling,\u201d Brunson said. \u201cI\u2019m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"New <\/p>\n

New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, center, hugs Mitchell Robinson after defeating the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

(Darren Abate \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThis is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell exactly what the lesson is, but we\u2019re learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn\u2019t feel like the road, though \u2014 not with thousands of New York faithful making the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.<\/p>\n

And back home, on the streets of the Big Apple, celebrations broke out everywhere. Fireworks lit up the night sky, people honked horns on jampacked streets and firefighters \u2014 from their trucks \u2014 slapped high-fives with delirious fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cHISTORY,\u201d New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on social media, then added that the Knicks\u2019 championship parade will be Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby\u2019s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season.<\/p>\n

By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy. And San Antonio had to shuffle off into the offseason, listening to Knicks fans celebrating in their building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t ready to win an NBA championship,\u201d Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. \u201cThe better team won. We did a lot of good things, and we didn\u2019t finish the job. That\u2019s what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game followed the same script 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 quarter.<\/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 16 of their first 18 and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio\u2019s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.<\/p>\n

\"Knicks <\/p>\n

Knicks fans react in New York after the team\u2019s title-clinching win over the Spurs on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

(Heather Khalifa \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, then Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio 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. The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a Finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field-goal shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a Finals game in the play-by-play era.<\/p>\n

Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova \u2014 both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.<\/p>\n

A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s why I came to New York,\u201d Brunson said.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Jalen Brunson and the Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they\u2019re the Champion Knicks. For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6964,4777,4778,10663,63796,37011,9,11,10,23277,9138,3449,61699,1777,26627,103057,3442],"class_list":["post-266191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-game","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-josh-hart","tag-knicks","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-point","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-season","tag-spurs","tag-texas","tag-title","tag-villanova","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}