New York Knicks forward OG Anunoby dunks the ball in the second half of the NBA Cup Final against the San Antonio Spurs at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday. The Knicks ended their 52-year trophy drought with a 124-113 victory. REUTERS
LAS VEGAS — It's been more than half a century since the Knicks hung an NBA championship banner inside Madison Square Garden.
The wait since 1973 to add another one didn't end on Tuesday night, but New York can make room for the NBA Cup banner.
OG Anunoby scored 28 points, Jalen Brunson had 25, and the Knicks rallied to beat Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs 124-113.
"This is great and we're going to enjoy this," Brunson said.
"But once we leave tomorrow, we're moving on."
This is a championship roster — NBA Cup MVP Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges cut down the nets in college at Villanova — with high hopes of representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals.
"This is a single-elimination tournament when you get to a certain point, so every game counts," New York coach Mike Brown said. "There was pressure on every game if you expect to be who you think you are. When you're able to have success, it breeds confidence in everybody in the organization."
New York's Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points and 11 rebounds, despite battling a calf injury. He went into the locker room with a minute left before halftime and later exited for the bench with 5:06 remaining in the third quarter and didn't return until late in the fourth.
Dylan Harper led the Spurs with 21 points, Wembanyama scored 18 and De'Aaron Fox had 16.
Wembanyama excused himself early from the postgame news conference because he said he "just lost somebody" on Tuesday.
New York dominated inside, outrebounding the Spurs 59-42, with Mitchell Robinson collecting 15 boards, including 10 on the offensive end in 18 minutes.
That helped give the Knicks a 56-44 edge in points in the lane.
The Spurs, however, led for much of the game before the Knicks went on a 13-1 run that began late in the third quarter to go up 100-95. New York never trailed again.
"After 25 games in, I believe that we've shown some signs that we can be a pretty good team," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. "We've also shown that we have a lot of areas of improvement. I think that's where we were living today."
The Knicks players got more than a trophy.
They wound up splitting about $5 million in additional bonus money.
Each player with a standard contract got an extra $318,560 for winning, taking the total $530,933.
The Spurs had to settle — such as it is — for $212,373 each.
This game doesn't count in the standings, so both teams remain 18-7, putting them atop their respective divisions.
Just making the final bodes well for both teams. The previous four finalists — Los Angeles Lakers, Indiana, Oklahoma City and Milwaukee — also made the playoffs. The Pacers made the Eastern Conference finals in 2024, and the Thunder won the NBA championship last season.
Brown agreed, adding that winning the title augured well for his side's hopes of mounting a championship run at the NBA Finals in his first season in charge.
"Any time you can participate in an event where you're the last one standing and you're able to hang up a banner, especially at iconic Madison Square Garden, you take that seriously," Brown said.
"And every one of our guys took it seriously."
'It was do-or-die'
For San Antonio, the NBA Cup final was an education.
A painful one.
The Spurs let an 11-point third quarter lead slip away and then some on Tuesday night.
San Antonio led 92-81 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter, when Wembanyama — who played off the bench once again as he works his way back from a strained left calf — connected on a deep 3-pointer.
The score the rest of the way: Knicks 43, Spurs 21.
San Antonio shot 6 for 23 over those final 14 minutes. It got outrebounded 25-8 — a staggering differential. The Knicks outscored the Spurs 18-4 in the paint over that stretch, too.
All one-sided numbers, and that's how the game got away.
"It was do-or-die, I think, out there," said Spurs rookie Harper.
"You've seen the level of intensity rise up for us, and them. Obviously, they came out with the win.
"But for us, it's not taking anything for granted; I think that's the biggest thing. When we all go out there, we all know that we've got to play 110 percent in order to win things like this."
"We're feeling pretty frustrated because we lost the game," Spurs coach Johnson said.
"We can continue to get a little bit better and minimize some of the things that we need to improve on."
The Spurs have had four of their key players — Wembanyama, Harper, Fox and Stephon Castle — together for exactly two games, those being the Cup semifinal win over Oklahoma City on Saturday and the Cup final.
The only teams in the Western Conference with better records than the Spurs right now are the Thunder and Denver.
Even on a night that didn't go San Antonio's way, there are still reasons to be cheerful.
Agencies
