Jalen Brunson Scores 45, New York Knicks Win First NBA Championship Since 1973

Published June 22, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The New York Knicks are NBA champions for the first time since 1973. They beat the San Antonio Spurs four games to one on Saturday night, June 14, at Madison Square Garden, with Jalen Brunson scoring 45 points in the clinching Game 5. Brunson finished 14 for 27 from the field, 4 for 7 from three, and 13 for 15 from the free-throw line in 41 minutes. The final was 94 to 90. The franchise’s 53-year championship drought, the longest active in the NBA when the series began, is over.

Brunson was named the Bill Russell Trophy winner unanimously by all 11 voters, averaging 32.6 points across the five games. He became one of four players since the shot-clock era to score 45 or more in a title-clinching game, alongside Michael Jordan in 1993, Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2021, and Bob Pettit in 1958.

Game 5: how Brunson closed it

San Antonio played their best half of the series in Game 5. Victor Wembanyama had 14 points and three blocks in the first two quarters, and the Spurs trailed by only seven at the break. The Garden crowd, which had been electric since warmups, turned quiet twice in the fourth quarter when the Spurs pulled within two possessions.

Both times, Brunson answered.

Three straight offensive trips in the final three minutes: a pull-up jumper off a screen at the elbow, a step-back three with Devin Vassell’s hand in his face, and two free throws after drawing a foul driving to his left. That’s nine points in about 90 seconds when San Antonio needed a stop. They scored four in response and the clock ran out.

When the buzzer sounded, confetti fell at Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1973. Brunson was swallowed by a scrum of teammates near half-court. Mike Brown, in his first year as the Knicks’ head coach, raised both arms at the scorer’s table and said nothing.

The series in five games

The Knicks opened the series on the road, which made the 2-0 start that much more striking. Game 1 at San Antonio was 105 to 95, Brunson with 28 points and 8 assists. Game 2 was a one-point survival, 105 to 104, with OG Anunoby’s contested mid-range jumper falling with 14 seconds remaining. Two road wins in San Antonio to open an NBA Finals is something only the 1993 Bulls and 1995 Rockets had done before. Both finished the job.

Game 3 belonged to Victor Wembanyama. He had 31 points and 12 rebounds in the Spurs’ 115 to 111 win at Madison Square Garden, getting to the foul line 10 times and shooting over the top of every double-team the Knicks sent at him. At 22, he is already the player the league thought he would become: a 7’4” shot-creator who changes geometry at both ends. The Spurs were alive.

Game 4 will be discussed for a long time. San Antonio jumped to a 29-point lead in the third quarter. The Knicks outscored them 51 to 22 in the fourth quarter and overtime and won by three. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history. Josh Hart had 19 points and 14 rebounds in the fourth and OT alone. OG Anunoby tipped in the game-winner with 4.6 seconds left in overtime. The series was 3-1 New York heading into Saturday night.

Brunson: the MVP nobody expected

Brunson was drafted 33rd overall by Dallas in 2018 out of Villanova, where he won two national championships (2016 and 2018) and took home the Wooden Award, the Naismith, and the Bob Cousy Award in his senior season. The knock on him coming into the draft was physical: six feet tall, 6’1” wingspan, not a natural athlete by combine metrics. The consensus was that he was a smart, skilled player who would have a solid NBA career, probably as a high-level backup or second-unit point guard.

Dallas found out quickly that the consensus was wrong. He was third-team All-NBA by his fourth season and started the Mavericks’ run to the 2022 Western Conference Finals. The Knicks signed him that summer on a four-year deal that the Dallas front office, by all accounts, did not see coming. He has since been named to three consecutive All-Star games and has earned All-NBA honors each of those years.

The postseason he just finished is historic by any reasonable standard. He averaged 30.4 points across all 17 games, 32.6 in the Finals. He scored 45 in the close-out. The company he joined (Jordan, Giannis, Pettit) includes three Hall of Famers and a consensus top-three player of his generation. Three of those four players averaged fewer Finals minutes than Brunson’s 41 in Game 5.

His father Rick spent nine seasons in the NBA. He was courtside Saturday night.

Mike Brown’s blueprint

Nothing about this season looked like a first-year coach still finding his footing. Brown, who won an NBA championship as an assistant under Steve Kerr in Golden State, runs a more structured defensive system than Tom Thibodeau, his predecessor. The switch-heavy, scramble-and-recover scheme Thibodeau built is gone. Brown’s version asks the Knicks to communicate earlier, rotate harder, and trust each other in ways that show on film but don’t always show in the stats.

OG Anunoby is one of four or five legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidates in the league, capable of checking any player one through four. Josh Hart plays the same role Julius Randle played in the 2021 run: high-energy forward who makes possessions longer and doesn’t need a play designed for him to contribute 14 points and 9 rebounds. Karl-Anthony Towns, the team’s most dangerous offensive weapon inside, was the player San Antonio had the hardest time managing in Games 2 and 4, particularly when he stopped settling for the mid-range and attacked the paint.

The Spurs are young and talented and will be back. Wembanyama is not close to his ceiling. This series was not a fluke for San Antonio. But New York is further along, better coached for this moment, and had the best player in the series.

The 53-year weight

The last time the Knicks won the NBA championship was May 10, 1973. They beat the Los Angeles Lakers four games to one in that series, with Walt Frazier playing what might still be the single most efficient offensive game in Finals history: 36 points on 12 of 17 shooting, 19 assists, 7 rebounds in a Game 7 on the road. Willis Reed, limping badly from a torn quadriceps muscle, played 27 minutes and scored 18 points. The Garden has been waiting for another banner ever since.

The drought had its close calls. In 1994, with Patrick Ewing carrying the offense, they reached Game 7 of the Finals against Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets and lost by five. In 1999, they were swept in five games by Tim Duncan and David Robinson’s Spurs. Same franchise, different era, now on the other side of history. Ewing had twelve more-or-less competitive years in a Knicks uniform without a ring. Spike Lee had a courtside seat for all of it.

Saturday ended it. The ticker-tape parade through Lower Manhattan on June 19 was the largest public gathering in the city since at least the Yankees’ 2009 championship run. Blue-and-orange confetti in the Financial District, a crowd eight blocks deep on Broadway, Brunson holding the Larry O’Brien Trophy from the back of a float past a crowd that had been waiting for this since before most of the players on the roster were born.

Related reading

• The 2026 NBA Finals: Knicks vs. Spurs, a 1999 Rematch
• New York Knicks 2026 Playoff Run
• New York Knicks championship drought
• Victor Wembanyama
• Patrick Ewing
• New York Knicks franchise history

Gear

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Sources

Game 5 box score (14-27 FG, 4-7 3Pt, 13-15 FT, 41 minutes, 45 points) and series averages (32.6 ppg) from Basketball-Reference’s 2026 NBA Finals game log. The Bill Russell Trophy unanimous-vote detail (11 of 11 voters) and the historic 45-point-in-a-closeout company (Jordan, 55 in 1993; Giannis, 50 in 2021; Pettit, 50 in 1958) from NBA.com’s official Finals MVP announcement. The Game 4 comeback as the largest in Finals history (29 points) from ESPN’s series recap. OG Anunoby’s overtime game-winner confirmed via Bleacher Report’s Finals Game 4 auction listing. The 1973 Finals Game 7 line for Walt Frazier (36 pts, 12-17 FG, 19 ast) from Basketball-Reference historical game log. Parade date (June 19) from NBA.com’s Starting 5 column.