Сан-Антониогийн талбайд болсон цувралын тав дахь тоглолтод ялалт байгуулснаар Нью-Йорк Никс NBA-гийн аварга болж, олон жилийн хүлээлтээ тайллаа.
Нью-Йорк Никс олон арван жилийн турш бүтэлгүйтэл, итгэл алдрах мэдрэмжийг даван туулж ирсэн ч энэ улиралд түүхэн амжилтаа ахиуллаа. Мэдисон Скүэр Гарденд болсон цувралын дөрөв дэх тоглолтын дараа хөгжөөн дэмжигчид талбайг орхилгүй удаан хугацаанд баяраа тэмдэглэсэн нь тус багийн хувьд ямар чухал ач холбогдолтойг харуулсан юм. Жэйлен Брүнсоны гайхалтай шидэлтүүд, Оу Жи Анунобигийн хамгаалалт, Жош Хартын эрч хүч болон Карл-Энтони Таунсын дамжуулалтууд энэ амжилтын гол хөшүүрэг боллоо.
Энэхүү ялалт нь багийн ерөнхий менежер Леон Роузийн оновчтой шийдвэрүүд болон бүрэлдэхүүний зөв сонголтын үр дүн юм. Патрик Юинг, Кармело Энтони зэрэг домогт тоглогчдын хүрч чадаагүй оргилд Брүнсон тэргүүтэй залуус хүрсэн нь Нью-Йорк хотын спортын түүхэнд шинэ хуудас нээв. 1973 оноос хойш анх удаа аваргалж буй тус баг Атланта Хоукс, Филадельфия Севенти Сиксерс, Кливленд Кавальерс болон Сан-Антониог буулган авснаар жинхэнэ утгаараа аваргын титмийн эзэд боллоо.
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They stayed and waited. Celebrated. Exhaled. Internalized it. For a few minutes. For a half hour. For as long as it took.
Game 4 was over, but they did not leave. To go would mean to lose this moment.
They were fans, former players, celebrities, friends, family. So many of them just stood around Madison Square Garden, on the court and in the stands right beside it. This was not a coronation — there was no title yet — but it was a salvation.
The New York Knicks, for so long, had defined misery. For everyone. There were scandals and heartbreak and dysfunction and, worst of all, a hopelessness. This was the real crush the franchise delivered. In a sport where just one player can change lives and where a market like theirs should offer a manifest destiny, the team delivered, mostly, pain.
Horrible, soul-crushing pain. The kind that can send a body into shock. The Isiah Thomas years. The Phil Jackson years. The James Dolan years. That’s what the Knicks and their fans have endured.
This was the real paradox of the Knicks. They are a prestige franchise that plays in the most important city in the world and the coolest arena in the sport. And all that offered for two decades was embarrassment. Even the ’90s Knicks, the pinnacle of fandom for so many who rooted for them, cannot escape their inability to win it all. It is definitional for them.
So Wednesday, as Game 4 bled into midnight and beyond, so many stayed. This was the night that all of it was worth it. There was no better place to be than the Garden that night. No cooler place to be. Who could want anything more in life at that very moment than to be a Knicks fan? Nobody. Not Taylor Swift, not Timothée Chalamet, not any of the Wall Street masters of the universe and the Big Law partners and the Hollywood celebrities who thrashed violently in their seats when OG Anunoby came flying in as a deliverance — his fingertips seemingly sent from heaven. They have it all, and nobody wanted more than that. There was no title yet, but it was coming.
That title arrived Saturday night with a Game 5 win in San Antonio. The New York Knicks are NBA champions. After 53 years, it is a truth again.
This team will go down as one of the most beloved compilations of talent in the city’s history. Not just for the championship, but for what they have brought. The Knicks are the only team that can unite the area, from the outer boroughs to Manhattan to New Jersey, and they have.
The surreal shotmaking of Jalen Brunson, the forceful cool of Anunoby, the sugar-rush energy of Josh Hart, the sweet playmaking of Karl-Anthony Towns, it will all live on in memory, a spring forever frozen in amber.
The Knicks — these Knicks — have offered their fans a season of redemption, an apology for the decades and generations that preceded it. They have rolled out the stars from failures past and let them glom onto this run. Made them a part of it, even.
John Starks went 2-for-17 in Game 7 against the Houston Rockets in 1994; he’s been a presence fist-pumping on the Eighth Avenue baseline. Patrick Ewing is sitting right beside him, a witness to the title he never won. Carmelo Anthony, Stephon Marbury, Jeremy Lin: All came up short, all got to watch along.
They saw, just like so many others, a team that became one of destiny so long ago. The mid-series evolution into a buzzsaw against the Atlanta Hawks. The evisceration of the Philadelphia 76ers. The humiliation of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The methodical teardown of the Spurs. What a run it’s been.
It has offered the cleansing that Knicks fans have needed for so long. But the playoffs have offered something for every nightmare. The Game 1 meltdown against the Indiana Pacers erased by the Eastern Conference finals comeback against the Cavaliers. The Roy Hibbert block on Anthony will now be overshadowed by the one Anunoby laid down on De’Aaron Fox. The 1999 loss to the Spurs answered by the takedown of them this month. Brunson, the right man to lead them all the way to where Ewing and Anthony came up short. Mike Brown, a low-ego orchestrator on the sidelines who did what Hall of Famers like Pat Riley, Larry Brown and Mike D’Antoni could not.
After Jordan and Hakeem and Reggie and Duncan, the Knicks finally slayed the biggest giant of them all to get here.
They did it by constructing the perfect team, a parallel to the only other champions that came before them in New York. A roster put together with a magic touch, after years of naked star-chasing had led them into the wilderness. This roster was built by a decision-maker in his second act, Leon Rose, who honed his skills as an agent to the league’s biggest stars only to switch sides and make one savvy move after another. This is how a title is won, with prudence and luck and a foresight that becomes apparent in the afterglow of victory.
What a victory it is.
The Knicks are champions, a line so rare it hasn’t been heard since 1973. All it took was a decontamination of decades of despair. But that’s all forgiven now. The redemption tour is over. The afterparty has begun.
Finally, there really is no better place to be than in New York.
