At the risk of deepening the polarization that has rent our precarious democracy to the point of collapse, it must be said, categorically, that the most triumphant moment in the postwar history of New York sports came on the night of May 8, 1970, when the Knicks’ captain and center, Willis Reed, his injured right leg numbed with cortisone and Carbocaine, limped onto the court at Madison Square Garden and, with two precise yet floor-bound “jumpers,” ripped the heart out of the Los Angeles Lakers and propelled his team to victory in the deciding game of the N.B.A. Finals. Reed, who had been listed as “doubtful” for the contest by the medical authorities, drew reasonable comparison that glorious night to the fallen El Cid, the medieval Castilian warrior, whose corpse, according to legend, was strapped onto his steed by his soldiers as they rode into battle outside Valencia.
The Lakers, despite the presence of three immortals in the their lineup––Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor––had been spiritually vanquished by Reed’s display of courage before they could break a sweat. And, as the Knicks widened their lead, Reed hobbled off the court, never to return, leaving the inevitabilities to the ball handler, ball thief, and sharpshooter Walt Frazier, who went on to register thirty-six points and nineteen assists. That championship team, which soon added yet another star, Earl (the Pearl) Monroe, to its roster, won a second title (against the Lakers, again) in 1973. The Knicks of that era also featured Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Dick (“Fall back, baby”) Barnett, Phil (Action) Jackson, Cazzie Russell, and a lunch-bucket guard named Mike Riordan, whose job it was to go into a game to commit a deliberate foul. (We all have our purpose in life.) Coached by the unflappable Red Holzman, it was a unit as exquisitely coördinated as a school of barracuda or the 1965 Miles Davis Quintet.
Now, it is well understood that some scholars partial to the ancients will attempt to elevate the 1927 Yankees, led by the stoical Lou Gehrig and the epicurean Babe Ruth, as the finest of all teams to play in the city. Gridiron-minded boomers will assert that, in 1969, Joe Namath’s Jets scored, in Super Bowl III, the greatest of all Gotham miracles. (Or maybe it was the Amazin’ Mets of 1969. Or the Bill Buckner-assisted Mets of 1986.) Surely, the two Ali-Frazier fights of the seventies at the Garden were the most glamorous of all New York sporting events––for the first bout, Life sent Norman Mailer to write and Frank Sinatra to be ringside photographer––but it was the decisive third, held in Manila, that was the most memorable. Millennials will propose the Jeter-Rivera-Williams Yankees teams as the best thing since Katz’s pastrami. Whatever. Basketball is the city game. The Garden is its Mecca. May 8, 1970, was the night of all sporting New York nights. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive! So proclaimed the voices of the Knicks: John F. X. Condon at the Garden, Marv Albert on the air. Case closed.
For Knicks fans, the half century since those two titles has been a prolonged excruciation with intermittent periods of thwarted hope. Ask Spike Lee, who, as a kid, attended the radiant 1970 finale and signed up for season tickets when the Knicks drafted Patrick Ewing, in 1985. A number of stars have worn blue, orange, and white over the years––Ewing, Bernard King, Carmelo Anthony, to say nothing of the fleeting excitement of “Linsanity” more than a decade ago. But, despite the team’s trips to the Finals in 1994 (a seven-game tragedy against the Rockets) and 1999 (a five-game bust against the Spurs), the mind of the loyal fan is tortured by a string of agonizing images: among them, Reggie Miller, of the Pacers, burying threes in Spike Lee’s face, Larry Bird trash-talking all comers, and, well, Michael Jordan, always. The only time the Knicks beat the Jordan-era Bulls in the playoffs was when he went on his baseball Wanderjahr with the Birmingham Barons. The one unsullied triumph for New York pro-hoops fans came in 2024, when the Liberty prevailed over the Minnesota Lynx to win the W.N.B.A. title.
Here we are again, a season on the brink. The Knicks, fuelled by the magical play of their point guard, Jalen Brunson, have made the N.B.A. Finals. Brunson is six-two, diminutive in today’s league, and yet, night after night, he has played with ever greater flair, and with far more velocity and power, than Walt Frazier did. Scoring nearly twenty-seven points a game in the playoffs so far, he slashes and spins his way toward the basket, shooting from seemingly impossible angles to the rim. In Game One of the Eastern Conference Finals, he almost single-handedly erased a twenty-two-point lead in the fourth quarter to force the Cleveland Cavaliers into overtime and eventual defeat. Time and again, he went one-on-one against the rabbinically bearded Cavs star, James Harden, driving, shifting direction, then suddenly lofting the ball against the top of the backboard and through the hoop. On the rare occasions when Brunson could find no way to score, he sent screaming passes to the corners, where his teammates lasered three-pointers at will. That late-game run––forty-four points to the Cavs’ eleven––was as soul-crushing to Cleveland as the apparition of Willis Reed, hobbling to center court, had been to the Lakers fifty-six years ago.
Brunson is hardly a lonely talent. Karl-Anthony Towns, who seems to crash to the hardwood every time he scores on the drive, is a wildly determined presence. No less thrilling, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, Landry Shamet, and Miles (Deuce) McBride are all capable of lighting it up on a given night, and God bless Mitchell Robinson, who might not be able to make half his foul shots but throws his big body against his opponents with admirable will.
Jittery courtside kibbitzers, first-time-longtimers, and Vegas savants are guarded in their evaluation of the Knicks’ chances. The defending champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, are, admittedly, a superior collection of athletes, and the very sight of the Spurs’ spindly and preternaturally composed and gifted center, Victor Nonga Wembanyama de Fautereau-Vassel (a.k.a. Wemby, a.k.a. the future of the N.B.A.), calmly sinking threes from mid-court will cast a shadow from San Antonio for years to come.
But, as another New York team instructs the city from its home in Flushing, “Ya gotta believe.” The Knicks are on an astonishing run. Unselfish and undaunted, they are putting on a magnificent show. This is what joy feels like. You remember joy, don’t you? ♦
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