Seventeen different teams — more than half of the NBA — have made it to the NBA Finals this century, a level of parity never before seen in the league’s history. Yet one notable franchise remained watching the championship round from home every spring.
The New York Knicks.
That drought emphatically ended Monday.
Behind a 130-93 blowout Game 4 victory over Cleveland, New York swept its way through the Eastern Conference finals to advance to the Finals for the first time since 1999, where it will await the winner of a Western Conference slugfest between Oklahoma City and San Antonio that is tied 2-2.
Game 1 of the NBA Finals is June 3.
This could be a repeat of the 1999 Finals, which the Knicks lost to San Antonio in five games.
During this postseason, the Knicks have authored one of the most dominant runs in NBA history, winning 11 consecutive games by an average of 23.8 points.
There were only five lead changes in Monday’s closeout game that clinched the Knicks the Eastern Conference title, and the last came with six minutes to go in the first quarter, when New York took the lead for good en route to a landslide win.
The Knicks made 19 3-pointers to just 11 for Cleveland, including Landry Shamet’s perfect 4-for-4 night off the bench. Karl-Anthony Towns scored a team-high 19 points with 14 rebounds.
Jalen Brunson scored 15 points and didn’t record a single turnover.
By sweeping the Cavaliers, the Knicks will have plenty of time to rest while the Spurs and the Thunder beat each other up in a back-and-forth Western finals. The Knicks are seeking their third NBA championship and first since 1973.
New York’s path to these Finals was a slow build.
From 2001 to 2024, the Knicks won just three playoff series combined. The catalyst to their turnaround began in 2022, when Brunson signed as a free agent and blossomed into a superstar guard. Last year, they advanced to the conference finals for the first time since 2000 but fired Tom Thibodeau, the coach who got them there.
After a monthlong search, New York hired Mike Brown. His chief task was finding a way for the team’s talented but at times ill-fitting roster to play better together, particularly the fit of big man Towns.
The Knicks finished the regular season with a 53-29 record, third-best in the Eastern Conference and their most regular-season wins since 2012-13.
Only one month ago, New York’s championship aspirations appeared fragile after they fell behind to Atlanta, 2-1, in the opening round of the playoffs.
Since then, New York hasn’t lost, winning 11 consecutive games to sweep past Philadelphia in the second round, followed by Cleveland. That ties for the third-longest winning streak in NBA postseason history.
It wasn’t just that the Knicks have won, but by how much.
Entering Monday’s clincher, they had won their previous 10 games by a combined 225 points, the biggest scoring margin in any 10-game stretch in NBA history, per AP research.
The win sparked raucous celebrations in Manhattan, and among the contingent of all-star fans that has traveled to support their ascendant team. New York fans easily outnumbered Cleveland supporters at Game 4, with die-hard celebrity fans including director Spike Lee and actor Timothée Chalamet among those making the trip.
Towns, the hometown star who has been central to the run, was beaming.
“I feel like the word ‘hope’ has been gone from the New York Knicks name for a long time and for me to be part of this team that revives hope is something special,” Towns said.
