The New York Knicks are a championship basketball workforce. Kind of. With their 124-113 come-from-behind win towards the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, the Knicks claimed the 2025 NBA Cup championship. It isn’t the NBA championship that Knicks followers have been craving, however it’s one thing.
Whether or not or not it’s banner-worthy stays to be seen or determined, however it does have some which means. There was a trophy — and money bonus — at stake, it was a structured event and the gamers concerned cared about it. And the Knicks have been the workforce that ended up standing on high. That has some worth.
However the largest worth is likely to be what it means for the Knicks as a complete this season.
Knicks present they don’t seem to be simply an Japanese Convention energy
The Knicks have been on a roll since a three-game shedding streak on the finish of October, going 16-4 over their previous 20 video games to climb again towards the highest of the Japanese Convention standings. That shouldn’t be a lot of a shock. The Knicks already established a yr in the past they’re a high workforce within the East having reached the Japanese Convention Finals. They’re proper there once more this season, particularly now that star level guard Jalen Brunson is heating up.
However Tuesday’s win reveals they don’t seem to be simply bullies within the East, and that they’ll compete with the highest groups within the Western Convention as properly.
The Spurs are quickly rising as a contender within the West and simply beat the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder within the semifinals of the NBA Cup, handing them solely their second lack of the season.
They’re legit. They’re for actual. They’ve celebrity energy.
And the Knicks simply beat them.
That may be a huge assertion all its personal, and within the grand scheme of issues, it is likely to be even greater than an in-season event that may in all probability find yourself getting forgotten by the top of this season.
Historical past has not been variety to NBA Cup champions
At this level, it’s nonetheless a small sampling, however the transient historical past of NBA Cup championships has not precisely translated into NBA playoff success.
The Los Angeles Lakers gained the primary NBA Cup through the 2023-24 season and went on to lose within the first spherical of that yr’s NBA playoffs.
The Milwaukee Bucks gained final yr’s NBA Cup and skilled the identical postseason destiny because the Lakers — a first-round loss.
Every workforce gained only a single playoff recreation of their respective sequence.
Can the Knicks break that pattern? That’s going to be their problem.
For as distinguished of a franchise because the Knicks are within the NBA, championship success has not at all times adopted them. They’ve simply two NBA championships in franchise historical past (each from the early Seventies), so any championship that they’ll declare is one thing worthy of celebrating. That features this. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless solely an appetizer for the principle course Knicks followers and the group are hungry for this season.
