Knicks win first NBA championship since 1973, beat Spurs 94-90 in Game 5

BREAKING NEWSJun. 14, 2026, 3:31 AM UTCNBANBAKnicks win first NBA championship since 1973, beat Spurs 94-90 in Game 5On Saturday, a New York roster that had been assembled, taken apart and overhauled over the past six years ended more than a half-century of waiting by closing out San Antonio.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson drives as San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet (7) defends during the second half of Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday.Darren Abate / AP PhotoShareAdd NBC News to GoogleBy Andrew GreifSAN ANTONIO — The New York Knicks are NBA champions.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.It is a sentence that has not been written in 53 years. It is a reality that was out of reach for the franchise from the late 1970s through the 1980s and felt oh-so-close in the 1990s, only to be laughably far away for much of the last quarter century.Yet, Saturday in Texas, a Knicks roster that had been assembled, taken apart and overhauled over the past six years ended more than a half-century of waiting by closing out San Antonio, 94-90, in five games to clinch New York’s third NBA title, and first since 1973.The young Spurs, playing in just the first postseason of 7-foot-4 superstar Victor Wembanyama’s career, entered these Finals having beaten 2025 champions Oklahoma City Thunder to win the Western Conference. New York had reached its first Finals since 1999 by taking what seemed to be a less arduous route.New York, however, won the first two games in San Antonio and clinched a championship while holding off the Spurs in the series’ emotional, unpredictable fourth and fifth games.Knicks fans arrived in Texas’s hill country in droves Saturday, wearing jerseys bearing last names such as Monroe and Starks, Ewing and Anthony, Anunoby and Brunson, all in orange and blue. They filled out sections from the arena’s upper-most rows to its swankiest courtside seats...