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New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, right, hugs center Mitchell Robinson after defeating the Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday in San Antonio. (AP photo)<\/p>\n
SAN ANTONIO \u2014 Knowing New York had waited 53 years to see the Knicks hoist the NBA championship trophy, owner James Dolan didn\u2019t even wait to be handed the 30-pound gold-plated prize.<\/p>\n
He grabbed it and lifted it skyward with a yell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to say something to New York,\u201d Dolan shouted. \u201cHey New York! I\u2019m sorry it took so long! But here we are, and hopefully it won\u2019t take that long again!\u201d<\/p>\n
The New York Knicks are champions of the NBA for the first time since 1973, beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games for this title. The clincher came Saturday night in a 94-90 victory, the Knicks\u2019 fourth comeback win of the series.<\/p>\n
Some will say it\u2019s the first \u201cmajor\u201d professional sports championship for New York in more than 14 years; that would be true when counting only Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL and the NBA, though it would be wrong to ignore the New York Liberty\u2019s run to the 2024 WNBA title and New York City FC winning the MLS Cup in 2021.<\/p>\n
But as far as the teams that have been part of the city\u2019s fabric for generations and generations, yes, this 14-year drought is finally over. The New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012, capping the 2011 season.<\/p>\n
The Yankees \u2014 the most decorated team in U.S. major pro sports history \u2014 haven\u2019t won a World Series since 2009. The Mets haven\u2019t brought a World Series title to New York since 1986. The Rangers last hoisted that trophy in 1994, the Islanders in 1983. The New York Jets haven\u2019t won a Super Bowl since 1969.<\/p>\n
None of that matters, at least not right now. The Knicks \u2014 who won 13 consecutive games at one point in this playoff run and rallied from 29 points down to win Game 4 of the finals at MSG \u2014 are the toast of the town.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I\u2019ve never seen anything like it, because it\u2019d never happened before,\u201d NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said of the Game 4 comeback in an interview on NBA TV on Saturday. \u201cBut it\u2019s been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Amazin\u2019 Knicks, indeed.<\/p>\n
Again, finally<\/p>\n
It took them 80 years \u2014 the Knicks won the first game in NBA history in 1946, three years before what was then the Basketball Association of America started being known as the National Basketball Association \u2014 but the franchise has now become the ninth that can say it has at least three championships.<\/p>\n
Boston has 18, the Los Angeles Lakers have 17, Golden State has seven, Chicago has six, San Antonio has five, and Philadelphia, Detroit and Miami all have three.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the club, New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy watching these guys,\u201d Knicks legend Larry Johnson said. \u201cThe Garden is back. \u2026 It\u2019s back like when we played and made our little run. The city is behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a franchise that has gone through 24 different coaches and more than 400 players since what was, until now, the most recent championship season. Some of the game\u2019s biggest superstars called Madison Square Garden home and couldn\u2019t end the title drought, names like Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Bernard King and Carmelo Anthony.<\/p>\n
The Knicks lost a Game 7 in the 1994 finals to Hakeem Olajuwon and Houston, then made a miracle run to the 1999 finals in a shortened season only to lose to San Antonio in five games \u2014 the first of what became five championships for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6-15-1b-knicks-398x500.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Spreadin\u2019 the news \u2026<\/p>\n
And this year, as Frank Sinatra said, the Knicks are king of the hill, top of the heap. Some in the fan base grumbled when the Knicks declined to hang an NBA Cup championship banner after beating San Antonio for the in-season tournament title earlier this season. Turns out, the Knicks were just waiting for something better.<\/p>\n
So, the 53-year wait is over. It was a very different league, and a very different game, in 1973.<\/p>\n
There were 17 teams in the NBA that season, barely half of the 30 that there are now. Teams called Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City-Omaha and Seattle home then; the league has expanded many times since, adding 13 teams in nine states, plus Canada and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n
The top salary in the league then was about $380,000, or roughly $2.9 million in today\u2019s dollars. There was no 3-point line then, no multi-billion-dollar television deal, no international players.<\/p>\n
The Knicks flew home on a United Airlines flight from the 1973 title clincher in Inglewood, California, and officials at Kennedy Airport expected what was then called a \u201crabid\u201d crowd of fans present to greet the plane. They braced for \u201chundreds\u201d of people that day.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno in New York contributed.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, right, hugs center Mitchell Robinson after defeating the Spurs in Game 5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[120148,120147,108064,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-336615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-knicks-snap-53-year-nba-title-drought-in-san-antonio","tag-knicks-snap-53-year-nba-title-drought-in-san-antoniosports","tag-national-sports","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}