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For the New York Knicks, the long wait for championship glory is finally over.
Jalen Brunson scored 45 points, leading the Knicks to their first NBA title in 53 years with a 94-90 win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night at Frost Bank Center.
AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin
Brunson put the Knicks on his back late
The Knicks trailed by seven heading into the fourth before finals MVP Brunson took over, scoring 13 straight points for New York in the quarter.
“I have no words,” Brunson said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
Brunson set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.
“It’s surreal,” added Knicks coach Mike Brown, who was hired a year ago, making him the franchise’s 24th coach since the franchise’s last championship in 1973. “I still can’t believe it’s happened.”
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — the other two parts of the “Nova Knicks” trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same — combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it,” Brunson said.
Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova — both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.
A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.
“It’s why I came to New York,” Brunson said.
The victory gives the New York City area its first major professional championship across the big four North American team sports leagues since the New York Giants won Super Bowl XLVI following the 2011 season, and gives the Knicks the franchise’s third title, joining 1970 and 1973.
“We weren’t ready to win an NBA championship”
The Knicks rallied from double-digit deficits in each of their four victories in the series. They trailed by as many as 16 in Game 5.
Dylan Harper paced the Spurs with 25 points. Victor Wembanyama finished with 19 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks.
“This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,” Wembanyama said. “I can’t tell exactly what the lesson is, but we’re learning.”
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn’t feel like the road, though — not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment more than five decades in the making.
New York was put in position to clinch on Saturday thanks to its historic Game 4 win on Wednesday in which it rallied from a 29-point deficit in the second half to stun San Antonio 107-106.
The Spurs are now 5-2 all-time in the NBA Finals, last winning it all in 2014.
“We weren’t ready to win an NBA championship,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “The better team won. We did a lot of good things, and we didn’t finish the job. That’s what it is.”
As usual, the Knicks overcame a slow start
Game 5 followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second quarter.
The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996-97 season, to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.
The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio’s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second.
Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.
A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, before Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break.
And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective. The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era.
