Been Way Too Long

Unless you have been living under a rock recently, you may be aware that the New York Knicks are heading to the NBA Finals and their opponent will be the San Antonio Spurs.  Also, if you have been living under a rock, you will also know that the last time the Knicks made the NBA Finals was in 1999.  In those Finals, they also played the Spurs and lost the series 4-1.  This was a shortened season due to a lockout and the Knicks honestly were not in the same class as the Spurs.  This Spurs team was made up of a lot of veterans with the likes of David Robinson, Sean Elliot, Avery Johnson, Mario Elie, Jerome Kersey, Steve Kerr and also a young guy by the name of Tim Duncan.  You may have heard of him.

Nobody ever expected the Knicks to get that far, most expecting them to lose to the Heat in the first round but Allan Houston hit a runner at the end of the game in Game Five to win the series.  I was listening to that game on my Walkman (yep, I said it) at my sister’s college graduation with people around me asking me for updates and I could barely contain myself when he hit that shot.  The team would go on a magical run, sweeping the Hawks and then beat the disgusting Indiana Pacers in six games before losing to the Spurs.

Now, after that season starting with the 1999-2000 season until the 2021-2022 season, the Knicks made playoffs seven times and lost in the first round five of those times.  The other two times were in the Conference Finals and Conference Semifinals.  The other 16 seasons were a lot of losing season with awful records.  In 2022-2023, a certain player named Jalen Brunson signed with the Knicks and they have not looked back since, making the Conference Semifinals the first two years, the Conference Finals last season and now the NBA Finals.

Growing up, I saw a lot of very good Knicks teams headlined by Patrick Ewing and we all thought 1994 was finally going to be the year.  No Michael Jordan to get in the way, they made it all the way to the Finals and lost in seven games to the Houston Rockets.  New York thought we would see the Rangers and Knicks both win but it wasn’t meant to be.  The last time the Knicks won the championship was in 1973.  It has been a long 53 years since they have won and Knick fans have been starving.  New Yorkers disagree on a lot of things when it comes to sports having multiple teams in each major sport.  In basketball, there is only one team New Yorkers really care about.  The other team is the Brooklyn Nets, who have played on Long Island in the ABA before moving to New Jersey and then eventually back to New York to Brooklyn.  The Nets are the ultimate little brother and even when they were good, the Knicks still stole the headlines.

While we have waited the 27 years for the Knicks to finally make it back to the Finals, we have had to endure some awful rosters as mentioned previously.  These rosters consisted of the likes of Eddy Curry, Malike Rose, Jerome James, Jared Jeffries, Langston Galloway and Cole Aldrich among many others.  The Knicks have had plenty of great to very good players when they were on other teams and then when they got to the Knicks either just did not perform well or were over the hill and past their prime.

With all of this being said, I am sure it seems pretty obvious that all of us Knicks fans are so excited, we have been waiting not only a week and counting since polishing off the Cleveland Cavaliers but the aforementioned 27 years to get back to the finals and 53 years to win again.  Wednesday night cannot come soon enough and the nail biting will then commence.  Let’s hope the Knicks can continue this great run they have had all postseason and bring the Larry O’Brien Trophy back to New York.

There is only one thing left to say, GO NEW YORK, GO NEW YORK, GO!!!