Six decades.
Not that anyone is counting, but we are now in the sixth decade since the New York Knicks last NBA championship.
For those who are counting, it was 1973. The first cell phone call was made that year. George Steinbrenner purchased a majority share in the New York Yankees for $10 million. And the No. 1 song in the country was “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn.
The world has drastically changed over the past 53 years. What hasn’t is the Knicks’ quest to win their third league title — the first earned in 1970. Seven players — Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Jerry Lucas, Earl Monroe, and Dick Barnett — were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame from the 1973 roster.
Their head coach, New York City native Red Holzman, was enshrined in 1986. A banner with No. 613, his accumulation of regular season wins with the Knicks, hangs in the rafters of Madison Square Garden. Phil Jackson, a key member of both Knicks’ championships, was inducted in 2007 as a coach after leading the Chicago Bulls to six titles and the Los Angeles Lakers to five. The 11 are the most ever by an NBA head coach.
Now, current Knicks head coach Mike Brown, and All-Stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, along with a strong supporting cast, endeavor to add their names to Knicks lore as the East’s No. 3 seed began the Eastern Conference Finals — the franchise’s 12th conference finals appearance — Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden versus the No. 4 seed Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series.
But in the clutch, the Knicks stood their ground, staging a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback in the final seven minutes after being down 22 points to send it into overtime and defeat the Cavs 115-104. Game 2 starts Thursday at 8 p.m. at MSG.
The Mandate
On June 3, 2025, three days after the Knicks’ four-games-to-two series loss to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks owner James Dolan and team president Leon Rose made what was arguably a drastic decision in firing head coach Tom Thibodeau. It was a polarizing move that had the Knicks’ ardent fan base and media debating the merits and efficacy of jettisoning one of the most successful coaches in the franchise’s then 79-year history, who was voted the NBA’s 2021 Coach of the Year in his first season at the helm of the Knicks.
Thibodeau had just guided the Knicks to their first conference finals series in 25 years. Rose, who was hired as team president in March 2020 after a long and successful career as a sports agent for the company Creative Artists Agency, representing, among others, LeBron James, brought Thibodeau on board in July of the same year. Prior to their arrival, the Knicks had made the playoffs just once in the previous eight seasons.
Together, from the 2020-21 campaigns through 2025, the tandem of Rose as the architect and Thibodeau as the engineer made the postseason four of the five years. The turnaround began in earnest when the Knicks signed Brunson in July 2022 to a four-year, $104 million contract. The former Dallas Mavericks reserve guard, backing up erstwhile Mavericks superstar Luka Dončić, has turned out to be the most consequential free-agent signing in Knicks history, emerging as one of the league’s best players.
Despite being an integral component of restoring the Knicks to a respected organization with championship makeup, the Knicks’ front office determined that Thibodeau had taken the squad as far as he could and new bench leadership was necessary to reach and win the Finals.
The new sports catchword, “collaboration,” was implied as a primary reason for Thibodeau’s dismissal. The Knicks wanted a coach who would fully buy into the vertical alignment of ownership, team president, coaching staff, and analytics department; the latter which has become demonstrably prominent and influential across the college and professional sports landscapes in all aspects of a program’s and organization’s operations.
It was reasonably inferred by many that Thibodeau was too old school in how he ran the team. Contending he was resistant to what amounts to extensive organizational modernization, implementing and executing his vision with suggestions and input from others that was moderately considered but infrequently applied.
While such reports have largely remained unsubstantiated by Dolan, Rose, and Thibodeau, and granular details as to what caused the parting remain publicly unspoken, change came at a time when the Knicks were a viable title contender for the first time since the 1990s.
On May 31, 2025, Brunson stood firm in support of his coach when asked by a reporter less than an hour after New York was eliminated by the Pacers if he deemed Thibodeau the right coach to elevate the Knicks to the Finals.
“Is that a real question right now?” Brunson said calmly but defiantly. “You just asked me if I believe that he’s the right guy? Yes. Come on.”
However, his substantial sway within the organization wasn’t enough to avert Thibodeau’s exit.
Fast forward to this past January, in an interview with radio station WFAN, Dolan issued a mandate for the Knicks: Finals or bust.
“We want to get to the Finals. And we should win the Finals,” said Dolan. He then insisted, “This is sports and anything can happen. But getting to the Finals, we absolutely got to do.”
“We love our team right now. They have chemistry, they all like each other,” Dolan expanded. “I’ve never seen a locker room more copacetic. There’s a lot of energy there. Leon can always overrule me. But I don’t see us making a big change. Because we got to keep building up this group. This group can win a championship. I believe that.”
Will the Knicks Deliver?
After an exhaustive and confounding search for a new head coach, which included Rose being denied permission to speak with Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd and Atlanta Hawks head coach Quin Snyder by their respective front offices, the Knicks officially hired Mike Brown last July.
Brown, now 56, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year (2009, 2023), who took the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first-ever Finals in 2007 with a young LeBron James as their star player (they were swept 4-0 by the San Antonio Spurs) possessed the resume, temperament and mindset of collaboration that Dolan and Rose viewed as the necessary characteristics to steer a group constructed to compete for a title.
“Mike has coached on the biggest stages in our sport and brings championship pedigree to our organization,” said Rose, announcing Brown’s hiring.
“His experience leading the bench during the NBA Finals, winning four titles as an assistant coach, and his ability to grow and develop players will all help us as we aim to bring a championship to New York for our fans.”
Brown subsequently laid out the qualities of a team that could scale the NBA’s mountaintop.
“I’ve been to six Finals with three different teams,” Brown said. “And the commonality that they all had is they all sacrifice for one another. They’re all connected. The connectivity, it’s at the highest and it starts with ownership on down.
“They all have a competitive spirit,” he illuminated, “and there’s a high level of belief not just in the process, but each other. So those four things are common amongst the teams that I’ve been with that have participated in the Finals.”
Brown’s interpretation took a while to manifest. The Knicks started this unevenly. They were 13-7 and there were expected rumblings that Dolan and Rose erred in firing Thibodeau. They then went 13-2 from December 3 to December 29, including defeating the San Antonio Spurs 124-113 on December 16 to capture the NBA Cup in-season tournament and were a sturdy 23-9.
Yet, a 134-132 loss in San Antonio to the Spurs on New Year’s Eve began a regression as the Knicks went 2-9 over their next 11 games and fell to 25-18. The connectivity Brown had said was essential to a championship team was not tangibly evident over that stretch. Then the Knicks dramatically course-corrected and went on an eight-game winning streak, raised their record to 33-18, and gradually addressed their defensive flaws and sometimes disjointed offense over the next ten weeks.
Knicks center Towns was the central figure to them coalescing. Around mid-March, Brown began to run the offense through Towns, employing him as an offensive facilitator from the high- and mid-post, utilizing his superb passing skills. The schematic change reduced Brunson’s time on the ball and the offense became more fluid and lethal. On the defensive end, Towns became more intentional and engaged, using his 7-foot, 250-pound frame to wall off the middle and form a formidable back line with fellow center Mitch Robinson, one of the sport’s elite defenders.
The Knicks finished the regular season 53-29, their most wins since going 54-28 in the 2012-13 season. After trailing the Hawks 2-1 in the opening round of the playoffs, they have been a juggernaut, beating the Hawks three straight, including a 140-89 annihilation in the series-clinching Game 6. Then the Knicks swept an over-matched Philadelphia 76ers team 4-0 in the Eastern Conference semi-finals to make back-to-back conference finals for the first time since the 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 seasons.
Still, not getting to the Finals, by Dolan’s standards, would be a failed season.
How far the Knicks will go is still to be determined. They still need three more wins against the Cavs. And even if they win the series, they would still have to face the winner between the San Antonio Spurs and defending NBA champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are hungry for a back-to-back crown.
Brunson, however, summed it up on Monday: “It’s go-time now.”