Brunson leads the Knicks to their first NBA title in 53 years

With information from AFP:

With an epic performance by Jalen Brunson, the New York Knicks defeated Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs 94-90 on Saturday and claimed their first NBA championship since 1973.

A colossal Brunson scored 45 points, compared to 49 from the rest of his teammates, as the Knicks sealed their Finals victory with a 4-1 series win.

The point guard was named the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP), having been the driving force behind the Knicks’ improbable comebacks.

"I'm speechless. This is everything I ever dreamed of," said Brunson, a player who was underrated for much of his career.

“I don’t understand what I’m feeling. Every time we were written off, we found a way to do something about it,” he said.

Brunson, 29, has carried the franchise on his shoulders since the Dallas Mavericks let him slip away in 2022 in one of the most baffling decisions in recent years in the NBA.

"You work your whole life for a moment like this," said an emotional Dominican-American Karl-Anthony Towns, who was limited by fouls throughout the game and scored only 2 points.

"There were moments when I fell, but I got back up and stayed confident," said the center, whose mother died of COVID-19 in 2020.

"Everyone knows my story; I want to thank my mother," he recalled.

On the Spurs’ side, Wembanyama tallied 19 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 blocks but had to bid farewell to his dream of winning the first championship of his meteoric career at just 22 years old.

Wembanyama, without a ring

The Spurs, one of the youngest teams to reach the Finals, fell to the ferocity of a Knicks squad that didn’t want to squander the opportunity of a lifetime.

The New York team wasn’t the favorite at the start of the playoffs but came together at the right moment, with a spectacular 13-game winning streak and the elimination of the defending champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Knicks’ run sent their fans into a frenzy; this Saturday, they not only took over the city’s squares to watch the game and celebrate the victory.

New York fans, who haven’t celebrated a major sports league title since 2012, mobilized en masse once again to make their players feel at home in San Antonio, 3,000 kilometers from New York.

Although in smaller numbers than in the Big Apple, where President Donald Trump and Taylor Swift were in attendance, the Finals also drew celebrities to San Antonio, such as Prince Harry and actress Sydney Sweeney.

- Brunson, alone in the face of danger -

The Knicks’ third championship ring in franchise history, following those of 1970 and 1973, has Brunson as its undisputed hero, in a game that followed the same script as the entire series.

If on Wednesday the Knicks overcame a 29-point deficit—the largest in Finals history—this time they rallied from a 16-point lead the Spurs had built in the second quarter.

Brunson had to account for 8 of the meager 13 points scored by the visitors in the first quarter, while the other starters combined for just 1 made shot out of 13 attempts.

The Texans pulled ahead 31-15 before the Knicks embarked on one of their inevitable comebacks.

Brunson, always coming to the Knicks’ rescue, chipped away at the Spurs’ lead until the Knicks were within three points heading into halftime.

The point guard headed to the locker room with 16 points without a single assist from his bench.

The Knicks’ six bench players went nearly three quarters without scoring a single point.

Amid the intense pressure and ironclad defenses, only Brunson and the talented rookie Dylan Harper stood out, with Harper shining once again with 25 points.

Brunson, completely unstoppable for the Texas defense, put the Knicks in control of the score with four minutes left and didn’t let go until the eruption of joy from his thousands of fans in the stands.

In the stands, Patrick Ewing and other icons of New York’s “cursed half-century”—which has just come to an end—celebrated with emotion.