The New York Knicks are NBA champions. And we’ve been there every step of the way.
From Mike Brown stepping into the head coach role to the NBA Cup victory to June’s crowning achievement, The Athletic documented each twist and turn in a historic Knicks run.
Here’s a recap of the 2025-26 season through the work of beat writer James L. Edwards III, senior writer Fred Katz, columnist Ian O’Connor and more.
Preseason/Regular season
July 3: Who might the Knicks get in Mike Brown? Two-time Coach of the Year is still evolving
Brown’s potential new employer is betting on his personality and diligence more than anything else. In some ways, Brown’s defining traits are similar to those of his predecessor, Tom Thibodeau, who built tremendous success in New York until his controversial firing. – Fred Katz
Oct. 20: Will Mike Brown be immortalized in New York or just another Knicks coach?
Brown is here in New York with the sole purpose of winning an NBA championship. The Knicks’ decision-makers made it clear after Thibodeau was fired that anything short of a title is unacceptable. And if any season was the season to do it, this is it. The East is battered and bruised, with several star players injured and previously contending franchises toggling between the present and future.
It’s a high-risk situation, especially for a coach who is no spring chicken. It also comes with the ultimate reward if the goal is met. Winning a title in New York would make you a star of stars in a city full of them, both past and present. It would grant you a free standing reservation at the Polo Bar. It would get you a statue similar in size to that green lady in the New York Harbor. Twenty-three coaches have tried and failed since Red Holzman manned the sideline in 1973, delivering the Knicks’ last championship. A title now, with so much despair over the last 50-plus years, would solidify anyone who ended the drought. — James L. Edwards III
Oct. 22: Is James Dolan having fun yet? The Knicks owner had better be after latest coaching change
“They like to jump out, shout something horrible and run away,” Dolan said. “That happens all the time. … It’s not fun.”
In the middle of what would be a 17-65 season in 2018-19, Dolan sat with me for two hours to explain how and why he runs his sports and entertainment businesses the way he does. At times, the conversation revolved around the subject of fun.
Dolan made it clear he wasn’t having any while running his basketball team. — Ian O’Connor
Dec. 13: Jalen Brunson, pound for pound, is the NBA’s best scorer
Brunson might not be a unicorn by definition. However, the game has done its darnedest to make players like him extinct. Maybe it’s safe to call him a modern-day unicorn.
When you watch Brunson have outings like the one from the NBA Cup semifinal win over the Orlando Magic — 40 points on 16-of-27 shooting — it feels like it’s time to say the quiet part out loud: Brunson, pound for pound, is the NBA’s best scorer. — Edwards
Dec. 17: The Knicks are champions, and it’s OK to say it
“Damn, don’t it look good to see ‘Champions’ on a shirt?” Karl-Anthony Towns asked as he moved his medal out of the way.
Say what you want about the NBA Cup. Maybe it’s your favorite thing going in pro sports. Maybe you actually do believe players compete harder when the court is colored. Maybe you hate it and think it’s just propaganda to make the rich richer.
No matter your thoughts, though, 30 NBA teams have a chance to win it. Only one did: the New York Knicks. — Edwards
Dec. 29: Film study with Jalen Brunson: Knicks star breaks down five of his plays
Brunson, fresh off a 34-point performance in a 128-125 Knicks victory over the Atlanta Hawks, was sitting on a folding chair next to his locker in the visitor’s locker room of State Farm Arena. I handed the Knicks star an iPad stocked with five clips’ worth of Brunson plays from this season. These weren’t Brunson’s greatest hits. It wasn’t a folder full of game-winning shots or ankle-breakers, which might take up a few folders. These were plays that, in my mind, would be interesting to hear Brunson talk about, to hear about how he processes the game and what’s running through his mind in certain situations. — Edwards
Jan. 5: Mike Brown used to babysit J.B. Bickerstaff. Now the coaches are atop the East
Before standing next to Brunson, before he was a fun-loving assistant coach to Stephen Curry, before being tapped to lead the last years of Kobe Bryant’s prime, and before coaching LeBron James to his first NBA Finals, Mike Brown was a babysitter.
Brown was J.B. Bickerstaff’s babysitter.
“He was strict,” the Detroit Pistons head coach told The Athletic. “He had a great way of making things fun but always organized and detailed. There weren’t going to be things that were missed, and he was scared to death of my dad. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.” — Edwards
Feb. 23: Karl-Anthony Towns’ curious season has taken a turn for the better
Trying to make sense of Towns’ season has at times felt like attempting to solve a Rubik’s Cube while wearing drunk goggles in a dark room. There’s mystery. There’s confusion. There’s bad luck and good luck. — Edwards
March 2: The complicated season of Mikal Bridges
To the naked eye, Bridges is having a solid season: He’s shooting nearly 50 percent from the field, 39 percent from 3 and averaging 1.5 steals per game, which is the second-best mark of his long career. There are games when it’s clear where the best version of Bridges can take New York.
Then, to the trained eye, there are nights when you forget he’s playing. There are games when you wonder if his minutes should be limited. Then you remember it took five first-round picks to get him. — Edwards
March 18: Mike Brown is threatening to change his starters. Josh Hart should stay
The Knicks’ starting lineup was supposed to be the franchise’s everything when it came together two summers ago. Brunson, Bridges, Towns, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart cost the Knicks all of their flexibility in exchange for the pursuit of a title.
If the time comes, though, when Brown decides he’s going to make a change, Bridges, not Hart, should be the casualty. — Edwards
March 25: Mike Brown isn’t in every huddle. There’s a good reason
There are times throughout a Knicks game when, if you look closely, Brown can appear to be wandering, both his body and his mind.
It’s only during a timeout, and not every single one. But, sometimes the Knicks head coach will be outside of the New York huddle, his hands in his pockets, his feet moving in circles and head looking up, thinking. Other times, like in the first quarter of Tuesday’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans, Brown will give a congratulatory clap to his players seated on the bench, take a step back and then hover over the shoulder of one of his assistant coaches as they speak to his team.
For Brown, the sporadic nonchalantness serves a strategic purpose and is not just a man needing a break from his job. — Edwards
Playoffs vs. Atlanta, Philadelphia then Cleveland
April 26: Karl-Anthony Towns is rising to the occasion again
Since Towns became a Knick, media, fans and observers have tried to make him a heel. There have been points during his two seasons in New York when people have wanted different things from the All-Star.
Yet Towns routinely shows up when the stakes are highest. He did it last postseason. And he’s doing it again. — Edwards
May 8: Meet Karl-Anthony Towns’ biggest fan — the mother of a Marine killed in Afghanistan
In her dining room, Kathleen Reinhard can still see the tall teenager at her son’s funeral service in 2012. She is wearing a dark New York Knicks hoodie while sitting near a tray of her homemade banana bread, describing the church scene by pointing to different spots on her table.
The altar was here. The casket was there. There were rows of pews here and here, and Towns was right over there. — O’Connor
May 10: Jalen Brunson’s Knicks legacy is still being written, but it’s already quite good
Whoever claims they prophesied Brunson would be this good is lying.
The New York Knicks were indeed searching for a messiah of basketball’s Mecca. They were desperate for a spectacle worthy of Broadway, for Madison Square Garden to again become the Knicks’ home court and not merely a stage for the visiting elite. So, for decades, they chased stardom, hunting for a return to relevance.
But the star for which New York basketball thirsted arrived in July 2022. — Edwards
May 11: Knicks owner James Dolan is winning his bet on Mike Brown over Tom Thibodeau
Thibodeau did not deserve to be fired.
Dolan did the right thing by firing him and replacing him with Brown.
Both things can be true in the bizarro world of professional sports, and both things are true today. – O’Connor
May 15: How did the Knicks get good? With 7 straight wins and one total reinvention
The Knicks are disintegrating anyone in their path. They have won seven consecutive playoff games, a franchise record, by a combined 185 points, an NBA record.
After a regular season that included an impressive 53 wins but also without a surefire identity, the Knicks have discovered what makes them special. So, what has changed since falling into a 2-1 hole during their first-round series against the Hawks? — Katz
May 20: A Knicks miracle in Game 1 is more reason to believe they could win it all
Game 1 out West was contested at such an absurdly high level that the loyalists who filled the Garden for Game 1 back East had to be wondering if the Knicks really had it in them to beat whichever titan emerges on the other side of the NBA Finals draw.
And then the closing seven and a half minutes of the fourth quarter happened. Brunson happened. – O’Connor
May 20: What else is there to say about Jalen Brunson?
At this point, declaring the excellence of Brunson is redundant. The words to describe another clutch performance, after another offensive explosion, tend to lose their impact because of repetition.
In Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, Brunson did it again. As has become the norm since becoming Gotham’s knight, Brunson protected New York when the Knicks needed saving, leading the Knicks to a 115-104 overtime win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. It’s become equally predictable as it is mesmerizing. — Edwards
May 22: The (Josh) Hart and soul of the New York Knicks
As Hart has gotten older, he’s learning to be nicer to himself. At his core, the 31-year-old is a perfectionist, which is ironic given that the beauty of his game is that it’s helter-skelter in all the best ways imaginable. He’s a competitor who makes something out of nothing, who sees the game in a way that makes some of his peers jealous.
When Hart is upset on the court, everyone can see it. His snarl is his trademark. Hart’s upper lip slants to the right, creating a crease that accentuates his cheekbone on that side of his face. His arms flail. His voice cuts through a raucous crowd. Usually, though, that outward frustration is rooted in how he views himself. — Edwards
May 24: The Knicks’ trade for Mikal Bridges was worth it, as they close in on NBA Finals
Bridges’ short trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan two summers ago initiated arguments that got as heated as subway platforms in July. The Knicks traded five first-round picks and more to the cross-town rival Nets to acquire Bridges, a reliable NBA wing without an All-Star Game to his name. Many saw it as a significant overpay for someone of his stature.
Yet here we are, almost two years since the move, and New York is a legitimate title contender again. The Knicks wouldn’t be here without Bridges. Not without those gangly limbs irking James Harden and Tyrese Maxey each time either one has tried to make something happen. Not without that buttery midrange jumper that floats over any tertiary defender an opponent puts in front of Bridges because it has bigger fish to worry about. Not without the marathon stamina Bridges and his iron-man reputation carry as he turns hard defense into easy offense with ever-so-subtle anticipation. — Edwards
May 25: Suddenly, the Knicks are amazing. What does it mean for the NBA Finals?
Sometimes, the most important moves are the ones you don’t make. Exactly one month ago today, entering Game 4 of their first-round series against Atlanta, it seemed like the Knicks were set to reshuffle their starting lineup in order to keep their season alive.
Instead, Brown kept the lineup the same, relied on the “play better” adjustment … and caught lightning in a bottle. — John Hollinger
May 25: How the Knicks built an NBA Finals team: Patience, restraint and Jalen Brunson
The journey to this moment, all of New York spellbound by a basketball team that doesn’t seem to ever lose anymore, began years ago.
Before the Knicks tore through the Eastern Conference with blowout after blowout. Before the trades for Towns, Bridges, Anunoby or Hart. Before the team’s captain, Brunson, ever arrived. — Katz
May 26: The Knicks are in the NBA Finals, and owner James Dolan expected nothing else
“Yeah, we want to get to the finals and we should win the finals,” Dolan, 70, said in a Jan. 5 interview on WFAN Sports Radio 101.9 FM in a rare media appearance. “This is sports, this is business and anything can happen, but getting to the finals, we absolutely got to do. Winning the finals, we should win.”
When the Knicks owner said that, they were amid their worst stretch of the season. They had lost three straight games, and just hours after Dolan’s voice hit the airwaves, his team got pummeled in Detroit by 31 to make it four. It felt like Dolan’s words were going to come back and bite him, as they had often done over the past two decades. It felt like the most anticipated Knicks season this century would result in the team being a punchline once again. It felt like the Knicks’ title drought, already a half-century long, was going to continue for generations.
But those were just feelings. The reality is that the Knicks, for the first time in 27 seasons, are going to the NBA Finals after sweeping the Cavaliers. Read that again: The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals. — Edwards
NBA Finals vs. San Antonio
May 28: Leon Rose built the Knicks into an NBA Finals team. So why should he talk about it?
Nothing is mysterious about these history-making Knicks, other than the executive who assembled them. – O’Connor
June 3: My time around the Nova Knicks: Inside the Brunson-Bridges-Hart brotherhood
It’s been a winding journey for this trio over these two years, but one I’ve been able to observe up close — I landed on the beat in that same timeframe, after seven seasons covering the Detroit Pistons, and have spent the past two seasons covering this group every day.
And here is what I’ve observed: The Nova Knicks are a brotherhood, and not one fabricated for the cameras. — Edwards
June 4: Jalen Brunson proves again he can be lead superstar on a championship team
“He’s got the tenacity of Willis Reed,” said Walt Frazier after Game 1, “and he’s got my cool.”
What more was there to say than that? — O’Connor
June 4: Karl-Anthony Towns’ inspiration in huge Game 1 of the NBA Finals? His late mother
Maybe the control and composure that he showed amid such heat and intensity should not have come as such a surprise. These are the moments, when the arena is hot and everyone is yelling at him, that feel closest to his mother. Jacqueline Cruz died in 2020 due to complications from COVID-19, robbing the Towns family of its matriarch and KAT of his biggest fan. He could always hear her voice above the din in any building he was playing in, and he felt her presence in Game 1. – Jon Krawczynski
June 5: The Knicks are delivering a lifetime run to a fan base madly in love with them
The Knicks are feeling the love from back home, because back home has followed them around the country, from Atlanta to Philly to Cleveland to Texas. An army of blue-and-orange jerseys has executed a series of non-hostile takeovers on the way to a potential NBA championship, because the fans feel exactly what the players, coaches and executives feel. — O’Connor
June 6: A magical end to a dream Knicks season seems all but certain now
You have to believe now. Whether they like it or not, basketball fans all over the world have to believe after what they saw at the end of Game 2 of the NBA Finals. — O’Connor
June 6: Knicks’ supporting cast keeps shining, bringing New York closer to a championship
It doesn’t seem sporting that the Knicks have eight or nine starters, while the Spurs only have five. But there you go.
New York’s journey to the brink of an NBA championship — the championship that has evaded the franchise for 53 years — has been built, for the last month-plus, on this premise. – David Aldridge
Yes, Brunson has been anxious. The man whose superpower is his ability to make the impossible look easy has the same feelings you and I have. The player whose NBA career has been defined by how he rises above moments when most melt — he sometimes can’t lift the weight of the world off his chest either. — Edwards
June 8: How Mike Brown and the Knicks found redemption together on magical NBA Finals run
Brown, in one season, has the Knicks in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, facing the San Antonio Spurs, the organization that gave Brown an opportunity as an assistant coach in the early 2000s. New York is two wins away. Getting to this point felt like a mandate when Brown took the job. That was the vibe coming out of New York during its extensive coaching search. Brown could have been out of a job just as quickly if New York had fallen short in the postseason. Instead, the Knicks have put together, arguably, the most dominant postseason run the NBA has seen en route to the NBA Finals.
Not bad for a guy who had come to grips with the possibility of not being a head coach again. — Edwards
June 8: Knicks are a team with ‘no egos.’ It’s put them within two wins of a championship
Before collectiveness became the defining trait of the Knicks, signs of it began to sprout earlier this season.
The Knicks sit only two wins short of their first championship in 53 years. But a few months ago, with a ring yet to pop up in such clear sight, one man sacrificed for the greater good. — Katz
June 9: The Knicks’ 13-game win streak is done. Now it’s time to show who they really are
The Knicks breezed into Game 3 of the NBA Finals, landing body blow after body blow on whoever stood in front of them. The 13-game run, which has featured victory after victory by astronomical margins, had many anointing them one of the best playoff teams of all time. But it was put to a halt Monday night in a 115-111 loss to the San Antonio Spurs inside Madison Square Garden. — Edwards
June 11: OG Anunoby writes his name in Knicks and NBA Finals lore
Anunoby, with his 40-inch vertical and 7-foot-2 1/4 wingspan, carved his name among Knicks legends as, this time, glory didn’t go to the shooter, but to the one who chased the miss. As has become the norm on this fairy-tale Knicks run, the improbable wound up feeling inevitable. – Marcus Thompson II
June 11: ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’ plays host to Knicks’ most incredible NBA Finals comeback
The Knicks’ comeback, unlike any in the history of the finals, was a win for the city, which has waited, as you all must certainly know by now, 53 years for another NBA championship. It was also a win for the team, which has been challenged like never before in this postseason by the young and hungry Spurs. But, most improbably, it was a win for the fans fortunate enough to be wealthy enough to afford the ridiculous get-in prices. Many weren’t the building’s normal fans, but when it mattered most, they were as loud as Vinny from Passaic.
The building, 58, and used to this by now, held the noise, amplified it, concentrating it on the road team, which came unglued in real time. – Aldridge
June 11: How ‘somehow’ became the Knicks’ DNA, and led to a historic NBA Finals Game 4 comeback
Just last series, they trailed the Cavaliers by 22 points with only eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter of Game 1. Somehow, they won. Because “somehow” has been woven into the Knicks’ DNA. “Somehow” is what they do. “Somehow” is why Miles McBride sat at his locker convincing himself that Game 4’s first-half shellacking, one that put the Spurs up as many as 29 points, could not poison them. “Somehow,” especially after a comeback in the NBA Finals that ended in a miraculous 107-106 victory, placing them just a single win away from their first championship in 53 years, is the identity of this team.
This crew of 18 players — from McBride to Brunson to Anunoby — never actually believes it is losing. — Katz
June 11: The Knicks, one win from NBA championship, really look like a team of destiny
I used to believe in karma. I don’t anymore. I never believed in destiny. I do now.
These Knicks have melted my brain. They’ve made me reconsider my philosophies on life. I’m convinced that this team has been selected by a higher power to be the chosen ones. It’s the only thing that makes sense. — Edwards
June 12: Why OG Anunoby was built for this NBA Finals moment
From the start of Anunoby’s career, it was important for a reporter to consider one question above all others when speaking with the burly forward: How much of this is schtick?
From the moment the Toronto Raptors drafted him in 2017, Anunoby offered up a mix of cliches and sentence fragments when sharing his thoughts. He was not being aloof, nor was he unable to express himself if he chose to. He just prized economy and brevity. Beyond that, he seemed thoroughly unimpressed with life in the NBA — not that he didn’t enjoy it, just that he wasn’t in awe of achieving a lifelong dream or playing in the best league in the world. – Eric Koreen
