NEW YORK, June 14 (Our New York News) — The New York Knicks are NBA champions for the first time since 1973, a finding supported by the league’s Game 5 result, Finals series record and franchise championship history.
The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 on June 14 in San Antonio to win the 2026 NBA Finals 4-1, according to NBA game and series records cited across Finals coverage. The title is the third in Knicks history and ends a 53-year gap between championships, according to NBA historical records.
The box score is the clearest record of how New York closed the series: Jalen Brunson scored 45 points in Game 5, leading the Knicks in the championship-clinching win. The official result shows a four-point margin, 94-90, in a game that gave New York the best-of-seven series in five games.
The title also changed the Knicks’ place in the league’s recent history. Before this season, their last NBA Finals appearance was in 1999, when New York lost to San Antonio 4-1, according to NBA Finals records. This time, the same matchup ended with the Knicks taking the series by that same margin.
The championship run included two late-series comebacks documented in game accounts. In Game 4 at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks overcame a 29-point deficit. Published accounts based on NBA records described that rally as the largest comeback in NBA Finals history, though the supplied material did not include a direct NBA historical record page for that superlative. In Game 5, accounts said the Knicks again came back from a double-digit deficit before winning the title.
The local effect was immediate in New York City. The Associated Press and BBC reported celebrations outside Madison Square Garden and elsewhere in the city after the final buzzer. The supplied accounts did not include official crowd estimates, police totals, injury figures or arrest numbers, so those details are not established in the record reviewed for this article.
City government also moved to mark the win. The mayor’s office announced a ticker-tape parade and City Hall ceremony for the Knicks on Thursday, according to reports citing the city announcement and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s public statement. Reuters reported that Mamdani posted “HISTORY” on X after the championship-clinching win.
The evidence trail for the central result is consistent: the NBA game record gives New York the 94-90 Game 5 win; the Finals series record gives the Knicks the 4-1 championship victory; the box score credits Brunson with 45 points; and NBA historical records place the franchise’s previous titles before this one in 1970 and 1973, making the 2026 championship the Knicks’ third.
