{"id":701626,"date":"2026-06-13T11:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701626\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:38:19","slug":"the-last-time-the-knicks-made-the-nba-finals-new-york-was-a-different-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701626\/","title":{"rendered":"The last time the Knicks made the NBA Finals, New York was a different world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/p>\n

The New York Knicks are one win away from their first NBA championship since 1973, energizing a city transformed over five decades.
\n Lifelong fans like Greg Hourdajian are reliving the emotions of that last title run with a new generation of supporters.
\n The team’s playoff journey has united New Yorkers across neighborhoods, backgrounds and generations in ways that transcend basketball.<\/p>\n

\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n

New York, New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n On a warm May night in 1973, in a working-class New Jersey suburb just across the Hudson from Manhattan, 17-year-old Greg Hourdajian stood in front of a television set shouting himself hoarse alongside his mother.\n <\/p>\n

\n The New York Knicks had just put away the Los Angeles Lakers, 102-93, in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, securing what remains the franchise\u2019s most recent championship. For Hourdajian \u2014 a basketball-obsessed son of Armenian immigrants who had grown up in Queens \u2014 it was one of the best days of his life.\n <\/p>\n

\n More than five decades later, the television is different, the room has aged and the city skyline has transformed. But Hourdajian, now 70, still watches from the same living room, this time with his daughter Jenna.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Knicks are one win away from a desperately-awaited championship, reaching the finals for the first time since 1999, and with every possession Hourdajian paces the floor with the intensity of a coach working the sidelines.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is the greatest win ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,\u201d he said after Wednesday\u2019s historic second-half rally when the Knicks closed a 29-point gap with 1.2 seconds to spare.\n <\/p>\n

\n He could barely contain himself as his daughter filmed the emotional whiplash of a Knicks fan\u2019s existence \u2014 despair giving way to belief, belief giving way to delirium.\n <\/p>\n

\n The last time the Knicks were this close to basketball immortality was 1999. The last time they actually climbed the mountain was 1973.\n <\/p>\n

\n Back then, New York was a city running on equal parts swagger and anxiety.\n <\/p>\n

\n The gleaming corporate capital familiar to tourists today did not yet exist. Times Square flickered beneath a haze of fear and neglect, adult movie houses lining the blocks and graffiti-covered subway cars rattling through stations. Mafia influence lingered in the background like cigarette smoke in the city\u2019s thousands of bars. New York was broke, fraying at the edges and dangerous in ways that became part of its mythology.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was the New York later immortalized by Martin Scorsese\u2019s \u201cTaxi Driver\u201d depicting yellow cabs drifting through rain-slicked streets, sirens echoing through the night, and a nightmarish landscape of crime, filth and decay.\n <\/p>\n

\"Karl-Anthony<\/p>\n

\n Hourdajian arrived at New York University later in the year after that championship run and remembers a city divided block by block.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen I went to NYU, it was tough. The village, Greenwich Village, was a prime area, obviously,\u201d he said, an inconspicuous nod to the area\u2019s Mafia roots. \u201cIf you went anywhere east of the village, like we when we would go to clubs on the east end, it was really a rough neighborhood, and then it changed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Since then, New York has remade itself over and over again. Entire neighborhoods have been transformed and landmarks have disappeared. The city has endured fiscal crises, blackouts, crime waves, terrorist attacks, recessions and a pandemic.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Knicks have changed, too, cycling through coaches, owners, arenas and generations of players \u2013 but never losing hope for a third championship.\n <\/p>\n

\n Yet as the team makes another run at a title, an exhilaratingly familiar emotion has returned.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a similar feeling, but this time it\u2019s like it\u2019s on steroids,\u201d lifelong New Yorker and Knicks fan Quron Booker told CNN, his 9-year-old son sitting by his side.\n <\/p>\n

\n Booker sees it everywhere, even in spontaneous conversations between strangers wearing blue and orange he would have never imagined sharing the same spaces with.\n <\/p>\n

\n For a city that has spent decades waiting for this moment, the excitement feels bigger than basketball.\n <\/p>\n

\n It feels like New York is recognizing itself again.\n <\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

\"Jose<\/p>\n

\n Hourdajian remembers when a ticket to a Knicks game could be had for less than $15. Today, he\u2019s lucky if he can find a seat in the upper reaches of Madison Square Garden for $350. A Finals ticket?\n <\/p>\n

\n Fuhgeddaboudit.\n <\/p>\n

\n When the Knicks clinched the championship in Game 5 of the 1973 NBA Finals, tickets sold for as little as $7<\/a>. More than 50 years later, fans are shelling out thousands just to get in the building. Courtside seats have climbed into six figures,<\/a> transforming a blue-collar pastime into one of the hottest tickets in sports.\n <\/p>\n

\n New faces \u2013 like Hollywood\u2019s favorite Knicks superfan Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet whose game appearances command a decent bit of airtime \u2013 and familiar ones, like beloved filmmaker Spike Lee who sat courtside with Prince during the 1999 NBA Finals, have united behind one rallying cry: Knicks in five.\n <\/p>\n

\n For Hourdajian, though, the stars on the court have always mattered more than the celebrities sitting beside it.\n <\/p>\n

\n Growing up, he kept a photo of Bill Bradley on his bedroom wall. Bradley, the cerebral forward and NBA Hall of Famer who helped deliver two championships to New York before becoming a US senator from New Jersey and presidential hopeful, was his hero.\n <\/p>\n

\n Then one day in 2006, while parking his car in Manhattan, he looked up and saw Bradley standing nearby.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI said, \u2018Senator Bill, my favorite Knick of all time!\u2019 and I\u2019m shaking his hand, and he\u2019s going, \u2018Thank you,\u2019 and I go, \u2018And I voted for you three times!\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n These days, picking a favorite Knick isn\u2019t as easy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of working-class guys. We love Josh Hart, but we have to root for Jose Alvarado, a Brooklyn kid who played high school ball in Middle Village, Queens,\u201d Hourdajian said. \u201cI was following him when he was in high school, and when he went to college, and he\u2019s the perfect fit for this team. He\u2019s unselfish, he\u2019s not a big guy, he\u2019s tough.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

New York in 1973 and 1999<\/p>\n

\n The qualities he admires haven\u2019t changed much over the years: grit, sacrifice, hustle, resilience, courage and \u201cnever say die\u201d toughness. And the game is as hypnotizing as ever, from OG Anunoby\u2019s tip shot in Game 4, Jalen Brunson\u2019s ice-cold, nonchalant response<\/a> to a missed foul after Victor Wembanyama shoved him in Game 3, and Karl-Anthony Towns erupting for a second-quarter scoring barrage in Game 2.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the old days, basketball shaped the city as much as music did.\n <\/p>\n

\n The city was a cultural laboratory, a place where entire genres seemed to emerge from cramped clubs and bars \u2013 a hotbed for musical revolution ranging from hip-hop to salsa to underground disco and punk rock.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hourdajian spent countless nights at The Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, a legendary venue that helped define New York\u2019s folk scene and hosted acts like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. Just a few neighborhoods away, another revolution was brewing at CBGB, where punk rock was beginning to rewrite the city\u2019s soundtrack.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI got tickets for us to go to see a show at CBGB\u2019s, and we walked in, and we\u2019re typical Bergen County kids. We had jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket, pretty clean cut, jockey looking kids, and we walk in and see everyone with the spiked hair,\u201d Hourdajian said. \u201cThe New York Dolls were playing with David Johansen and my friends are looking at me going, \u2018My God, I can\u2019t believe we\u2019re here.\u2019 That epitomized the punk scene in New York City.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n What hasn\u2019t changed is that New York remains, at its core, a city of immigrants.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like the city they represent, the roster of the 2026 Knicks reflects strong immigrant roots, with global connections to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Britain, France and Poland.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Hourdajians\u2019 roots in New York City also stretch back nearly a century. Both of his grandparents survived the Armenian genocide, his father being just 1 year old when he arrived in America in 1924, one of the last waves of immigrants processed through Ellis Island before immigration restrictions dramatically tightened.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMy dad was an independent film editor whose studio was on 44th Street and Sixth Avenue, which right off Times Square,\u201d Hourdajian said. \u201cWhen I was a little kid, it was a very dicey neighborhood. It\u2019s been completely gentrified since my dad worked there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Neighborhoods once associated with crime, drugs, disinvestment and abandonment have become some of the most sought-after real estate in the country. Places like Williamsburg, Bedford\u2013Stuyvesant and parts of Brownsville now attract young professionals, artists and newcomers, AKA \u201ctransplants,\u201d from around the world.\n <\/p>\n

\n The New York of boarded-up storefronts, graffiti-covered subway cars and cheap rent \u2013 as low as $111 in 1970 and $486 in 1990<\/a> \u2013 has largely disappeared. In its place is a shinier, wealthier city.\n <\/p>\n

\n But on Knicks nights, especially during a playoff run that included an historic 13-game win streak, the old New York still peeks through.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen they were down by 29 and they won\u2026everyone said, \u2018You must be going crazy,\u2019 and I was very subdued,\u201d Hourdajian said. \u201cBecause this is not over yet.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

\"Madison<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n When the Knicks erased a 29-point deficit against the Spurs in one of the most improbable playoff comebacks in franchise history, 9-year-old Bryce Booker burst into tears.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey won by one point,\u201d he sobbed into his father\u2019s arms, who filmed the sweet moment after Wednesday\u2019s game. \u201cOG got the last point.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Knicks fans immediately welcomed Bryce into one of New York\u2019s oldest traditions: good-natured suffering. \u201cBro not old enough to be crying that hard for the Knicks, he hasn\u2019t been here long enough,\u201d one commenter joked. \u201cCan\u2019t front lil man I was ready to cry too until I realized I was in a room full of grown adults,\u201d another Knicks fan said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bryce follows in his father\u2019s footsteps, living and breathing basketball. He watches it obsessively and plays whenever he can \u2014 imitating his favorite player, Knicks captain Jalen Brunson.\n <\/p>\n

\n When New York last reached the NBA Finals in 1999, Brunson was just 3 years old, darting around locker rooms while his father, Rick Brunson, was a backup point guard for the Knicks.\n <\/p>\n

\"Assistant<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

\n More than a quarter-century later, the Brunsons have become the first father-son duo in NBA history to each play in the Finals for the same franchise, both times against the San Antonio Spurs.\n <\/p>\n

\n For Bryce, this playoff run is new. For his father, who remembers the 1999 Finals like it was yesterday, it feels like history circling back.\n <\/p>\n

\n It brings back memories \u2013 both of basketball, and how much the city has changed, a lot of it for the better.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhere I\u2019m from, downtown Brooklyn, a lot of people that grew up down there, the mothers, the aunts, the grandmothers, and grandfathers, a lot of them didn\u2019t get to experience the freeness, things like healthier food options and better living, and a safer community, that\u2019s the bittersweet part,\u201d Quron Booker told CNN. \u201cThose who were there when it was so rough aren\u2019t really available to really see the fruits of where we are now.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n His passion for the game once helped derail a high school relationship. At another point, he said, he came close to pursuing basketball professionally himself. Through every stage of life, the sport has been a constant companion.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now he gets to experience it all over again through his son.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI love the fact that everyone is coming together in harmony, there\u2019s a lot of togetherness,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSpeaking from a human standpoint, whereas before it was more so like, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re White, and I\u2019m non-White, and we have this misunderstanding on who we are individually, but now it\u2019s like, \u2018We\u2019re human, we all are trying to navigate this thing,\u2019 and the Knicks are playing such a pivotal role in doing so.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Booker teaches Bryce that it\u2019s okay to be emotional, that there\u2019s nothing wrong with vulnerability or crying.\n <\/p>\n

\n After all, Knicks fans have had plenty of reasons to.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI remember saying I\u2019m done, I\u2019m not messing with the Knicks no more, but then I\u2019ll still watch it. When Charles Oakley was running around, when Anthony Mason came, we had hope. Allan Houston, leading up to Jeremy Lin, and Carmelo Anthony, it\u2019s been constant hope that turns into, \u2018Damn, will we ever get a championship?\u2019\u201d he said of former Knicks over the years.\n <\/p>\n

\"Jalen<\/p>\n

\n At one point, he even tried becoming a Brooklyn Nets fan, he jokes, but the attachment wasn\u2019t the same. They weren\u2019t the Knicks, and it wasn\u2019t Madison Square Garden.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, with the Knicks one win from a championship, Bryce and his father have their own rituals. They pray for the team\u2019s good fortune and to protect their good luck \u2013 and Bryce has a simple message for anyone listening:\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cKeep God first and never give up.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Law<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

\n Gentrification may have transformed much of New York City, but the people who call it home have a remarkable way of staying the same.\n <\/p>\n

\n Outside of The Bakery in Harlem, graffiti artist and clothing designer Doms has spent over 10 hours a day for weeks creating old-school NYC-inspired Knicks shirts while blasting an iconic soundtrack straight out of the city\u2019s golden era of hip-hop.\n <\/p>\n

\n The playlist jumps from Big Pun\u2019s \u201cThe Dream Shatterer\u201d to Jadakiss and Young Jeezy\u2019s \u201cSomething Else\u201d to D-Block\u2019s legendary Hot 97 freestyle. Spray paint hisses and music envelops Amsterdam Avenue as Knicks colors cover the sidewalk. One of his most popular designs features the Knicks logo framed by bricks and the shadow of the Manhattan skyline, a tribute to the city that raised him.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like many real New Yorkers, he refused to give up hope for the Knicks. This run feels different.\n <\/p>\n

\"Graffiti<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s way more energy around the game now. Social media amplifies that,\u201d he says in between coats of spray paint on a fresh batch of tees. \u201cIn 1999, I was still actively doing graffiti on buildings. I\u2019m more of a businessman now. Paint was cheaper also,\u201d he says, laughing.\n <\/p>\n

\n For a few hours, and sometimes all night, on game day, the city seems to operate on a different set of rules.\n <\/p>\n

\n Construction workers, firefighters, lawyers, teachers, immigrants, lifelong New Yorkers and recent arrivals all find themselves screaming at the same television screens throughout every borough. Every point results in cheers and car horns\u2013 and on the eve of their past three wins, the city buzzes with a passion that\u2019s simply irresistible, even for the bandwagon fans.\n <\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

\n Miranda Sanchez, a daughter of a Knicks fanatic and Nuyorican \u2013 a Puerto Rican born and bred in NYC \u2013 says she\u2019s never seen her father happier in his life.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019ve inherited being a Knicks fan from my dad since birth,\u201d she said. \u201cI think any Knicks fan will tell you it\u2019s been a really rough couple of years.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In just a few hours, New York will turn its attention to Game Five. Fans are praying, some building makeshift altars, shushing anyone who discusses the series too confidently, worried they\u2019ll jinx the good fortune. Hope, anxiety, and riding the rollercoaster of emotions have become as much part of the Knicks experience as pick-and-rolls and three-pointers.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe fun thing about being an underdog,\u201d Sanchez says, \u201cis that the wins feel that much powerful.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For New Yorkers, the Knicks have been underdogs long enough.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary The New York Knicks are one win away from their first NBA championship since 1973, energizing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-701626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}