Starting 5: Inside the Knicks' title run

Larry hoisted. ✅

Champagne sprayed. ✅

Up next: The Knicks’ championship parade.

5 STORIES IN TODAY’S EDITION 🏀

Run To Remember: A look back at the Knicks’ 16-3 journey to their third NBA championship

Knicks Celebration: Brunson’s emotional embrace, OG’s smile and Larry’s trip to New York

Vision To Victory: Jeff Zillgitt on how the Knicks ended their record-long title drought

Young Spurs’ Next Steps: Ahead of schedule in 2025-26, Wemby & San Antonio look to build on Finals lessons learned, Tim Reynolds writes

Finals Frames: Some defining snapshots of a thrilling championship battle

BUT FIRST … ⏰

The Celebration Heads Home: New York will honor its first NBA title since 1973 with a championship parade through downtown Manhattan on Thursday.

Key Dates To Know: With the 2025-26 NBA season in the books, here’s a look at what’s next on the league calendar.

• June 23: NBA Draft Round 1 (8 ET, ABC)
• June 24: NBA Draft Round 2 (8 ET, ESPN)
• June 30: Each NBA team may begin negotiating with all other upcoming free agents
• July 3-6: California Classic Summer League
• July 4, 6-7: Salt Lake City Summer League
• July 6: Each NBA team may begin signing free agents to contracts
• July 9-19: 2026 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas

1. RELIVE NY’S RECORD-SETTING ROAD TO ITS FIRST TITLE SINCE 1973

From starting the Playoffs 1-2 to a 15-1 finishing run that will go down as one of history’s hottest postseasons, the Knicks have delivered New York’s first NBA title in 53 years.

• Anxiety In Atlanta: At risk of a 3-1 hole on the road, New York pulled off a three-game course correction, clicking into Mike Brown’s system at the perfect time
• Sending A Message: New York survived the First Round by laying down a statement, 51-point Game 6 clincher on the road vs. the Hawks, with an 83-point 1st half and 140-point final tally
• Sweeping Through: The Knicks rode an all-time wave through to the Finals, with their 13 straight wins building the 2nd-longest Playoff win streak in NBA history
• The Comebacks: Six wins after trailing by double digits. The 22-point OT turnaround in the East Finals clincher. The Finals-record 29-point rally in Game 4 at The Garden
• The Reward: The wait for the franchise’s third title is officially over, for a traveling, star-filled fanbase that took team support to head-turning levels | Jeff Zillgitt’s look at Ben Stiller enjoying the title run

It culminated in one of the most dominant NBA Playoff runs ever, as New York outscored its opponents by a postseason-record 283 points.

• Plus 14.9: That’s the average point differential across New York’s 19 postseason games, the highest positive margin in Playoff history
• Three Losses: The Knicks went 16-3, losing by only six combined points over the three defeats
• A Dozen By Double-Digits: New York’s 12 wins by 10+ points tied for the most in any Playoff run in history, with five coming by 29 points or more
• Sealing Each Series: The Knicks went undefeated in closeout games, eliminating their opponents on the first try each time. They largely dominated those games, scoring 140 (+51), 144 (+30), 130 (+37) and 94 (+4) points, respectively
• More: John Schuhmann’s 5 Stats That Defined New York’s Run

The Knicks then buckled down from a high-scoring drive through the East to a historically close Finals, with all five games entering clutch territory (within 5 points with under 5 minutes to play).

• New Level Of Clutch: Each of the five Finals games ended up separated by just two points within the last two minutes
• Crafty Closeout: New York’s 94-point Game 5 total to win the title was the team’s only time scoring under 100 points in the entire postseason
• Finals MVP Jalen Brunson scored the most clutch points (22) in any Finals in 15 years, since Dirk Nowitzki poured in 26 in 2011
• Don’t Skip Defense: The Playoffs’ best overall defense (104.5 points allowed per 100 possessions) locked down even tighter in the Finals’ ample clutch time, allowing just 66 points in 72 clutch possessions
• More from a Finals that captivated the hoops world: Schuhmann On Clutch Finals | Relive Game 5 with Starting 5’s Championship Edition | Chasing History

As for the aforementioned Finals MVP, Brunson led both the Playoffs and the NBA Finals in scoring.

• New Level: Brunson upped his Playoffs-best 28.4 ppg to 32.6 in the Finals, as the only player to average 30+ points in the championship series
• Newbie History: That’s good for the 5th-highest ppg for a player in his first Finals
• Double Clutch: Twenty-two of the Playoff-high 38 clutch points Brunson logged came in the Finals
• Trending Topics: What is your biggest takeaway from NBA Finals?

Beyond Brunson, the Knicks showcased a complete team effort in their run to the title, benefiting from five different leading scorers along the way.

• KAT’s Gap: Karl-Anthony Towns’ sixth-career Playoff appearance was his best, posting the highest plus-minus in a single postseason (+258) in league history, while matching up with Victor Wembanyama
• OG Amazes: OG Anunoby enjoyed a star turn in the playoffs and won his second NBA title. His 20.1 ppg were a Playoff career-best, and his tip-in to win Game 4 stands out as one of the defining plays of these Playoffs — along with the history of New York hoops
• “‘Nova Knicks”: Six players averaged a positive double-digit plus-minus per game in the 2026 Playoffs. Four of them were Knicks, with Josh Hart (+10.6) and Mikal Bridges (+10.3) joining KAT and Brunson
• Hart had the 3rd-highest total plus-minus this postseason, as one of just three players with a +200 mark, behind KAT and Brunson
• Bench Boom: While New York got a Playoff-high 87.6 ppg from its starters, it still received the postseason’s third-best bench plus-minus (+3.5 ppg) from a reserve group that outscored its opponents by a Playoff-best 67 points

With a roster rotation virtually the same as last season’s East finalist team, the force that pushed it all to the top in 2026 was Mike Brown, in his first year in New York.

• Stay Present: Brown instilled the Knicks’ “0-0” mindset, saying: “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 …”
• Play Fast: “We have to play faster, so we’re not going to be able to call any plays,” Brown said after Game 4 of his offensive philosophy. “We have to keep getting into actions right away, keep trying to move the ball”
• Buy-In Boost: “We finally got to a point where [KAT] was comfortable, I was comfortable, Jalen was comfortable … that’s what the regular season is about,” Brown said of the team clicking at the right time for its Finals run
• Dogs’ Day: After assisting on four championships throughout his career, Brown was finally the one to let the dogs out for his first title as a head coach

2. CHAMPIONS’ MOMENT: INSIDE NEW YORK’S TITLE CELEBRATION

“It’s happening, Knicks fans – it’s happening! It’s been 53 years, but for this moment, it was well worth the wait! A Playoff run that will go down in history – and a team that will live forever!”

That was Knicks radio voice Tyler Murray as the clock hit triple zeroes on Game 5, uncorking a celebration for a team that had just secured its championship.

• Peak Feeling: Join the Knicks courtside for the moment they became 2025-26 NBA champions
• Generational Joy: That championship feeling spread beyond the players, from Knicks greats Walt Frazier and Patrick Ewing to longtime superfan Spike Lee – all soaking in a moment 53 years in the making from courtside

The Moment It Hit Him: Throughout the Knicks’ championship run, New York’s captain, Jalen Brunson, remained as composed as ever.

That changed after the final buzzer, when an outpouring of emotion followed a pair of embraces with two people closest to him: his father and coach, Rick Brunson, and longtime teammate and former Villanova roommate, Josh Hart.

• “I walked to halfcourt, shook Mitch Johnson’s hand and then turned around, and my dad was right there – and just got emotional from that point on,” said Brunson
• “I just remember Josh talking in my ear, just saying, ‘We did it! We did it!’ … I was emotional for a good 5-10 minutes. And then the excitement started to kick in.”

As the reality of a championship began to sink in, the Knicks’ postgame tears quickly turned into champagne cheers, featuring celebrity cameos, good luck charms and championship portraits.

• “Two Rings, One Year”: Celebrating alongside fiancée Jordyn Woods, Karl-Anthony Towns made sure to give credit to the Knicks’ secret weapon: Jordyn’s lucky bag
• Said KAT: “I want everyone in New York to know, that bag won a championship.”
• “Mr. Aura”: No matter how big the shot or stage, OG Anunoby never seems too high or too low. On Saturday, the Knicks finally found something capable of cracking his stoic demeanor: an NBA title
• Golden Ticket: Joining in on the champagne shower? Lifelong Knicks fan Timothée Chalamet

And the party is just getting started, as Knicks fever sweeps across New York ahead of Thursday’s parade.

• Parade Ready: Mitchell Robinson revealed that his famous lifted truck will be making an appearance on Thursday
• Wedding Ready: KAT already has plans with the Larry O’Brien Trophy – and they extend beyond this week
• Precious Cargo: But first, Larry made its way to the Big Apple, flying between a pair of former roommates eager to show New York its newest piece of hardware

3. FROM VISION TO VICTORY: HOW THE KNICKS ENDED THEIR TITLE DROUGHT

Fifty-three years separated the Knicks’ second and third NBA championships, the longest gap between titles in league history.

But championship teams don’t just emerge over time – they’re built.

For New York, that build began with a new vision in 2020 and accelerated two years later, when the Knicks bet on an overlooked guard named Jalen Brunson, writes NBA.com’s Jeff Zillgitt:

“Brunson sat at the dais for a news conference between Games 2 and 3 of the Finals and the Knicks up 2-0. Asked what it was that scouts and executives missed about his game during the draft process, the 29-year-old Brunson smiled.

‘Everything,’ he replied.

With the Knicks, Brunson developed into an All-NBA guard who is a gifted scorer and one of the league’s elite clutch players. Brown repeatedly calls him an MVP-caliber player, and the Knicks are not champions without Brunson.” | Read More

4. WEMBY AND HIS YOUNG SPURS FACE LESSONS IN FINALS LOSS

Victor Wembanyama announced his arrival this season, not just as a superstar, but as the Kia Defensive Player of the Year, an MVP finalist and a championship contender.

The Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds writes on NBA.com that Wemby’s unprecedented skills and stats helped open San Antonio’s championship window earlier than expected, even if the team didn’t yet break through:

“… The ultimate moment has escaped his grasp for the second time in three years. In 2024, he tearfully watched the U.S. celebrate winning Olympic gold at the Paris Olympics –

And now, he relived that moment by seeing the New York Knicks celebrating their first championship in 53 years… in San Antonio on Saturday night …

It’s only Year 3 for Wemby. It’s not like every star wins right away …

Wembanyama knows the history, knows that it took some of the greatest to ever touch a ball several years to win a title.

Doesn’t mean he likes it.

“It’s painful. It’s painful,” Wembanyama said. “But I’m not running away from that. I’m using it to fuel me …” | Read More

5. FINALS FRAMES: SNAPSHOTS OF A CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

At its best, the NBA Finals showcase everything that makes basketball special — and that’s exactly what the Knicks and Spurs delivered.

From two epic opening games in San Antonio to a historic Game 4 rally at the Garden, these Finals delivered clutch moment after clutch moment in a series that captivated the basketball world.

To put a bow on this thrilling series, we’ve collected a few frames that capture the intensity of it all.