Basketball
Have the Knicks ever won a championship?
The New York Knicks’ playoff journey came to an end on Sunday evening with a 109-130 loss to the Indiana Pacers. The Knicks had taken a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series but were duly eliminated in Game Seven.
Donte DiVincenzo starred for the Knicks on Sunday, scoring 39 points at Madison Square Garden, but they were shaken by an injury to star Jalen Brunson. Midway through the third quarter Brunson suffered a broken hand, seriously hampering the Knick’s offensive potency.
For a second consecutive season the Knicks exit the post-season in the Conference semi-finals, although they did pick up three more regular season wins than they managed in 2022/23. Their wait for an NBA championship goes on.
When was the last time the Knicks won a championship?
Although few modern day NBA fans were around to witness it, the New York Knicks have won a championship. They’ve won two, in fact. But even the most recent of those titles came more than 50 years ago.
In the 1969/70 season an iconic Knicks team set an NBA record for consecutive wins, racking up 18 back-to-back victories on their way to a 60-22 regular season. They triumphed over the Los Angeles Lakers in the finals with a heroic performance from MVP Willis Reed in the all-important Game Seven.
The Lakers got revenge over the Knicks in the 1972 NBA finals, before another Knicks-Lakers rematch in 1973. This time it was the Knicks who came out on top to claim their second championship in four years.
That spell was a golden era for the New York Knicks and that success did not last. At the end of the following season Reed announced his retirement and the team began to stagnate, subsequently suffering their first losing season in eight years. The Knicks have claimed two conference titles since those glory days of the early 1970s. In 1994 and 1999 they were crowned kings of the East, led by future Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing, but they were beaten by the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs.