The New York Knicks are a championship basketball crew. Type of. With their 124-113 come-from-behind win in opposition to 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 match and the gamers concerned cared about it. And the Knicks had been the crew that ended up standing on prime. That has some worth.
However the largest worth could be what it means for the Knicks as an entire this season.
Knicks present they aren’t 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 prime crew 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 aren’t simply bullies within the East, and that they will 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 famous person energy.
And the Knicks simply beat them.
That could be a large assertion all its personal, and within the grand scheme of issues, it could be even larger than an in-season match that may in all probability find yourself getting forgotten by the tip of this season.
Historical past has not been form to NBA Cup champions
At this level, it’s nonetheless a small sampling, however the temporary 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 crew gained only a single playoff sport of their respective sequence.
Can the Knicks break that pattern? That’s going to be their problem.
For as outstanding of a franchise because the Knicks are within the NBA, championship success has not all the time adopted them. They’ve simply two NBA championships in franchise historical past (each from the early Nineteen Seventies), so any championship that they will declare is one thing worthy of celebrating. That features this. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless solely an appetizer for the primary course Knicks followers and the group are hungry for this season.
