By Kyle Feldscher, CNN
(CNN) — The moment for the New York Knicks is finally here.
A 53-year wait for an NBA championship has felt agonizing and never ending, and as of about 10:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, it seemed like it might have to wait another few days for this moment to arrive.
But after the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, the Knicks take a 3-1 series lead into San Antonio and have the opportunity to send The Big Apple into delirium by clinching their first championship since “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree” was the top of the charts.
How are the Knicks approaching tonight’s game?
“0-0,” said Jalen Brunson, the team’s star point guard.
That’s a smart way to look at it. On the edge of history, there’s a very large and very imposing Frenchman and his young teammates looking to shrug off the most embarrassing moment of their basketball lives.
All that stands in their way is a San Antonio Spurs team that started this series as the favorites; a young squad that seemed to find their footing in Madison Square Garden. After falling behind 2-0, losing both games at home at the Frost Bank Center in Texas, Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs walked into the most imposing atmosphere New York had put on in a generation and promptly stole Game 3.
Then, through three quarters, the Spurs kicked the Knicks up and down the floor at the World’s Most Famous Arena, amassing a 29-point lead at one point. It looked for all world like these Finals would stretch into next week, guaranteeing a return to New York for a Game 6.
Instead, the Knicks – determined to not get punked out on their home floor – made a charge for the ages. It took nearly the entire second half, and a full-on Spurs collapse, but they got there when OG Anunoby flew through the air and tipped in a missed shot with just 1.2 seconds left.
“The right hand of God, right hand of God. And you can’t spell ‘God’ without ‘OG,’” said Karl-Anthony Towns.
The New Jersey kid knows his Big Apple sports and he put it up there with some classics – Plaxico Burress’ Super Bowl catch, Derek Jeter’s “home run” to right field in the 1996 playoffs – but there’s one important caveat to it all.
“It’s a great moment. It’s one of the best sports moments in New York history,” Towns said. “But we’ve got to solidify it with one more win.”
Calm before the storm
The series moving back to San Antonio after a few days in New York has appeared to calm some of the off-the-court noise.
The prelude to Game 3 was hijacked by the presence of President Donald Trump and the intense security a presidential visit requires – not to mention the loud booing of the commander in chief when he was shown during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Before Game 4, Knicks owner James Dolan decided to go into a PR war with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, bickering over the status of the watch party that had become a staple outside the Garden in earlier rounds.
With the Knicks now on the precipice, and the series returning to The Alamo City, much of that has died down. Instead, the most impatient city in the world is forced to wait.
“The biggest thing is everybody has to stay present. You have to be present. You can’t think about the outcome. It’s about the process, the next play, the next play, the next play,” head coach Mike Brown told reporters on Friday.
“Sometimes you can think about the process, and it not work out. But when you’re playing against other great teams especially, that’s how you have to take it because anybody’s mind can start wandering when you think about the outcome.”
What’s at stake
The stakes are simple for the Knicks: Win and become New York legends.
The Knicks are an iconic NBA franchise and one that, despite the presence of the Nets (first in New Jersey and now in Brooklyn), has been a part of the soul of the tri-state area for generations. But those most recent generations have known far more heartbreak than would really be considered fair for most other teams.
For the first 10 years after that 1973 championship, the Knicks were in the wilderness. There were a few playoff runs, but mostly they missed the playoffs. In 1985, a young center named Patrick Ewing, who had just starred at Georgetown, came to the Garden and a turnaround seemed not only possible but probable.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, Ewing’s Knicks were regular playoff participants. But still, those teams could never get over the hump. In 1994, they finally got Michael Jordan out of the way (he went to play baseball), won a dramatic Eastern Conference Finals series against the Indiana Pacers in seven games and faced the Houston Rockets in the NBA Finals.
It went the distance, a full seven games, but that 1994 team fell short. And much of their Finals journey was overshadowed by the OJ Simpson case that began with a white Ford Bronco slowly driving down Southern California freeways in the middle of the opening game.
It took five more years, and another Jordan return and three-peat, for the Knicks to make it back to the biggest stage – against none other than the San Antonio Spurs. That Spurs team was just on the verge of becoming the next century’s most consistent franchise and easily dispatched the Knicks in five games.
And then for most of the next 20 years, the Knicks were terrible.
Sure, they had moments. Linsanity was fun. Carmelo Anthony had many productive years. Stars came and stars went. The only thing that stayed was the losing.
A turnaround decades in the making
It wasn’t until last year – when the Knicks made a series of tough off-season calls and traded for Towns and made Brunson their go-to guy – that suddenly it looked like a real possibility that New Yorkers would get to watch, and enjoy, basketball in June.
That run ended at the hands of Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the stage appeared set for the Knicks in 2025-26.
What followed was regular season filled with some high highs and some low lows as the Knicks ended up as the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference. But beneath that modest performance over 82 games was a beast ready to turn it loose.
After dropping the second and third game of their opening round series against the Atlanta Hawks, the Knicks turned it on. They rolled through the Hawks the rest of the way, blowing them away in six games. Next up were the Philadelphia 76ers, who were little more than a speed bump. The Cleveland Cavaliers, fresh off a seven game upset of the top-seeded Detroit Pistons, couldn’t muster anything against the New York steamroller.
Through two games in San Antonio, it looked like the party would end in New York in four games. The Knicks used their experience and moxie to hold off the exuberant young Spurs’ early game runs, eventually turning the screws in the second and third quarters to build solid leads. They held off late charges and went back to the Garden with a two-game lead and chants of “Knicks in four!” blaring in their ears.
Those chants, after the Game 4 comeback, have turned into “Knicks in five!” Closing it out on Saturday and not going back to the Garden for anything other than a victory parade is not just the best option – for a nervous fanbase like New York’s, it might be the only option.
To paraphrase one of their famous fans sitting at courtside during game 4, the Knicks feel ready for it.
“We know they come out with a lot of energy. They’ve been doing it all playoffs. We’ve been very up and down with that a lot this year. So we’ve got to make sure we come in focused with a great attention to detail and taking things a possession at a time,” said Knicks star Josh Hart. “We know if we do that and we play our style of basketball, we’re going to put ourselves in a good position to be successful.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
The New York Knicks are on the verge of a long-awaited championship News Channel 3-12.
Hence then, the article about the new york knicks are on the verge of a long awaited championship was published today ( ) and is available on News channel ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The New York Knicks are on the verge of a long-awaited championship )
Also on site :