The New York Knicks are NBA Champions. With their win over the Spurs on Saturday, the Knickerbockers ended a 53-year championship drought. Plus, the 2026 NBA Playoffs were arguably the most exciting we have seen in years. Now that the series is over, let's look back at the 2026 NBA Finals and discuss what this victory tells us about the Knicks, the Spurs, and the rest of the league.
The Knicks just had the most impressive NBA playoff run of the 2020s
In a day and age where everybody is so quick to make judgments and assessments about where champions stack up against one another, it's not far-fetched to say that the 2026 New York Knicks had the most impressive playoff run of any team that has won an NBA championship in the 2020s. Since the 2019-20 season, the Knicks and the Boston Celtics are the only two teams in the NBA to win a championship while finishing their playoff run with a win percentage of .800 or higher. In fact, the Knicks and the Cs both went 16-3 during their championship runs. The only difference is that Boston beat injured teams. In the first round, the Celtics defeated a Miami Heat squad that was missing its top two scorers (Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier). In the second round, Boston beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen miss multiple games. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton missed the last two games of the series due to injury. Even in the NBA Finals, Luka Doncic was dealing with three different injuries. The Knicks' opponents were all fully healthy during their playoff run, yet they only lost three games during the 2026 postseason.
Moreover, the New York KILLED the teams it played. The Knicks had a point differential of +283, which is the highest in NBA Playoff history. They outscored their opponents by 283 points, 53 more than the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors. On average, Knicks games during the 2026 NBA Playoffs ended with them winning by 14.9 points per game. If the Knicks beat a team by 10 points during this run, it would be considered a below-average performance. Oh, and by the way, THEY WON 13 GAMES IN A ROW AT ONE POINT! In the six years since the COVID season, no team has had a more impressive playoff run than these Knicks.
The Spurs were a year early
The San Antonio Spurs showed a lot of mettle in their first playoff run since the Gregg Popovich days. What's more impressive is that they made the NBA Finals despite their youth and playoff inexperience. They had the second-youngest roster in NBA Finals history with an average age of 25.2 years. Only the 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers had a younger team (25.0 years).
In reality, the 2025-26 San Antonio Spurs were not supposed to make it as far as they did. This was a team that finished last season 14 wins below .500. Hell, they were picking second overall in the 2025 NBA Draft! Their two best players were 22 and 20 years old. This was Mitch Johnson's first full season as an NBA head coach. Yet, they still powered their way through to the 2026 NBA Finals, which is a testament to how good San Antonio was.
Unfortunately, the Spurs' immaturity and lack of playoff experience showed through at the worst possible time. Mitch Johnson made many coaching mistakes. Victor Wembanyama struggled in the clutch. De'Aaron Fox had several costly blunders. If they were one year older and wiser, the Spurs probably would've put up a better fight in the 2026 NBA Finals. San Antonio is ahead of schedule, which is a good problem to have. But the lights were too bright for this young team, which is why they failed to put away the Knicks even though they had leads at many points during the series. If the 2026-27 Spurs were playing the 2025-26 Knicks, the series might have gone differently, but we'll never know.
Other teams will not be able to replicate the Knicks' formula
The NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL are copycat leagues. Whenever a new team wins a championship, other franchises try to follow the steps that the new champion took to achieve success. However, it's not feasible for other teams to copy the New York Knicks' championship formula.
Let's start with NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson, who was basically born and raised to become a New York Knick since his dad played for the team in the 90s and 2000s. Not only did Brunson sign for less than the value of a supermax contract when he joined the Knicks in 2022, but he also took a $113 million pay cut when he signed a contract extension with New York in 2024. There's a strong possibility we might never see that again from an NBA superstar.
Then you look at how the rest of the starting five was built. The Knicks managed to pull off perfect trades to land OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, and Karl-Anthony Towns. They got Hart by giving away three players and draft picks. They decided to move on from Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle for KAT. New York parted ways with two young, high-value players to acquire Anunoby. And of course, they sent five future first-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for Bridges. No other team will completely reconstruct its roster SUCCESSFULLY in three years like the Knicks did. The likelihood of four needle-moving trades all working out is very low.
And, we of course have to mention the highly controversial decision to move on from former head coach Thom Thibodeau. At the time, it seemed like a crazy choice since Thibs led the Knicks to their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in over 20 years, but the Knicks still decided to part ways with Thibodeau in favor of Mike Brown. I can't think of one NBA team that would fire a coach after the most successful postseason run this millennium, but the Knicks did it, and it paid off handsomely.
The truth is that we may never see another franchise replicate what the Knicks did. There were a ton of different factors at play. Everything had to work out perfectly, and - somehow - it did. But that just means that the Knicks are the exception to the rule, not the standard.
Mike Brown will be a Pro Basketball Hall of Famer
There may not be a person whose life changed more from this Championship run than head coach Mike Brown. Before coming to New York, Brown's biggest claim to fame was being one of the scapegoats for LeBron James' failed first stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers. After that, he bounced around from team to team, where he struggled to find a new place to call home. Brown spent one full season as the Los Angeles Lakers' head coach before he was abruptly fired five games into the 2012-13 season. In 2013, he spent one year with the Cavaliers before he was let go in May of 2014. Following a seven-year assistant coaching gig with the Golden State Warriors, he was hired by the Sacramento Kings in 2022. Despite some success, he was eventually fired in December of 2024 after Sacramento got off to a 13-18 start to the season. Then, last July, Brown got the chance of a lifetime when he was asked to be the savior of the Knicks franchise and get them over the hump. And, amazingly, he did it. He coached his ass off and unlocked this team's true potential. He got the best out of Karl-Anthony Towns and ended the Knickerbockers' 53-year championship drought. Honestly, the Knicks would not have won the 2026 NBA Finals without Mike Brown.
This victory has completely changed the course of Mike Brown's life and the conversation about him as a coach. Before this win, Mike Brown was viewed as a nice coach, but never a great one. Now, with the adjustments he made to this team, he should be recognized as one of the best coaches currently in the NBA.
More importantly, he now has a Hall of Fame resume. He is an NBA champion head coach, a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, and a four-time champion as an assistant coach. With two Coach of the Year awards and five championships under his belt, Mike Brown is a shoo-in to be inducted into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame whenever he chooses to retire. In the unlikely event that he is never enshrined in the Hall of Fame, at the very least, he will never pay for a drink or meal for the rest of his life in New York City.
Jalen Brunson will go down as the best player in Knicks history
Jalen Brunson has only been with the New York Knicks for four seasons. Yet, he already has a case as the best player in franchise history! He delivered the team its first championship in 53 years. He has been named to three straight All-Star games. He is the only other person besides Michael Jordan to score 45 points in a series-clinching NBA Finals win on the road. And the craziest part about all of this is that he is just beginning to peak as an athlete. He’s only going to continue to improve as a player over the next few years.
There are multiple players that Jalen Brunson has surpassed in the annals of Knicks history during this postseason alone. He has already overtaken Carmelo Anthony as the best Knicks player of the millennium. Knicks fans will probably hold Brunson in higher regard than Charles Oakley and Bernard King, too. Oakley is a great ambassador for New York, but he doesn't have the stats to compare to Brunson. Meanwhile, Bernard King only played for five seasons in New York. Brunson has likely already passed him on the Knicks' Mount Rushmore.
As outstanding as he was - and he was one of the best players of his era - some will say that Jalen Brunson is already a better New York Knick than Patrick Ewing. Obviously, Ewing has longevity and All-Star appearances working in his favor, since he was named an All-Star 11 times during his 15-year career in New York. But the knock against Ewing was that he never won the big one. Conversely, Jalen Brunson won the championship that eluded Patrick Ewing for 15 years in his fourth season with the team. If fans aren't already taking Brunson over Ewing, they will in a few years as he continues to bolster his resume.
Right now, only two players outside of Jalen Brunson can claim they are the greatest New York Knicks of all-time: Willis Reed and Walt "Clyde" Frazier. Both of those guys are in the Hall of Fame, and both of them were crucial members of the 1970 and 1973 championship teams. But with the mounting pressure of 53 years of heartache now relieved, Brunson doesn't need to win another championship to match those guys. Most fans already view Brunson as Reed and Frazier’s equal. All Jalen has to do is continue making All-Star games and averaging 20 points. He’s already 17th in points scored in franchise history. If he averages 1432 points per season over the next five years (17.5 points per game), he'll pass Frazier and Reed on the franchise's all-time scoring list, making him the greatest player in New York Knicks history because he’ll have Ewing beat in championships as well as Frazier and Reed beat in scoring.
Jalen Brunson has firmly cemented himself as one of the four greatest Knicks of all-time with the masterful run he had during the 2026 NBA Playoffs. Now, it's only a matter of time before he becomes the best player in franchise history. Even if he never wins another championship, he will go down as one of the best to ever put on a blue and orange basketball jersey, if not, the best.
