For Knicks fans, the half century since those two titles has been a prolonged excruciation with intermittent periods of thwarted hope. Ask Spike Lee, who, as a kid, attended the radiant 1970 finale and signed up for season tickets when the Knicks drafted Patrick Ewing, in 1985. A number of stars have worn blue, orange, and white over the years––Ewing, Bernard King, Carmelo Anthony, to say nothing of the fleeting excitement of “Linsanity” more than a decade ago. But, despite the team’s trips to the Finals in 1994 (a seven-game tragedy against the Rockets) and 1999 (a five-game bust against the Spurs), the mind of the loyal fan is tortured by a string of agonizing images: among them, Reggie Miller, of the Pacers, burying threes in Spike Lee’s face, Larry Bird trash-talking all comers, and, well, Michael Jordan, always. The only time the Knicks beat the Jordan-era Bulls in the playoffs was when he went on his baseball Wanderjahr with the Birmingham Barons. The one unsullied triumph for New York pro-hoops fans came in 2024, when the Liberty prevailed over the Minnesota Lynx to win the W.N.B.A. title.
Here we are again, a season on the brink. The Knicks, fuelled by the magical play of their point guard, Jalen Brunson, have made the N.B.A. Finals. Brunson is six-two, diminutive in today’s league, and yet, night after night, he has played with ever greater flair, and with far more velocity and power, than Walt Frazier did. Scoring nearly twenty-seven points a game in the playoffs so far, he slashes and spins his way toward the basket, shooting from seemingly impossible angles to the rim. In Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals, he almost single-handedly erased a twenty-two-point lead in the fourth quarter to force the Cleveland Cavaliers into overtime and eventual defeat. Time and again, he went one-on-one against the rabbinically bearded Cavs star, James Harden, driving, shifting direction, then suddenly lofting the ball against the top of the backboard and through the hoop. On the rare occasions when Brunson could find no way to score, he sent screaming passes to the corners, where his teammates lasered three-pointers at will. That late-game run––forty-four points to the Cavs’ eleven––was as soul-crushing to Cleveland as the apparition of Willis Reed, hobbling to center court, had been to the Lakers fifty-six years ago.
Brunson is hardly a lonely talent. Karl-Anthony Towns, who seems to crash to the hardwood every time he scores on the drive, is a wildly determined presence. No less thrilling, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Landry Shamet, and Miles (Deuce) McBride are all capable of lighting it up on a given night, and God bless Mitchell Robinson, who might not be able to make half his foul shots but throws his big body against his opponents with admirable will.
Jittery courtside kibbitzers, first-time-longtimers, and Vegas savants are guarded in their evaluation of the Knicks’ chances. The defending champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, are, admittedly, a superior collection of athletes, and the very sight of the Spurs’ spindly and preternaturally composed and gifted center, Victor Nonga Wembanyama de Fautereau-Vassel (a.k.a. Wemby, a.k.a. the future of the N.B.A.), calmly sinking threes from mid-court will cast a shadow from San Antonio for years to come.
But, as another New York team instructs the city from its home in Flushing, “Ya gotta believe.” The Knicks are on an astonishing run. Unselfish and undaunted, they are putting on a magnificent show. This is what joy feels like. You remember joy, don’t you? ♦
