For the first time in 53 years, the New York Knicks are NBA Champions. Jalen Brunson earned MVP honors.
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they're the Champion Knicks.
For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Jalen Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories. The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.
"It's surreal," Knicks coach Mike Brown, who was hired a year ago -- making him the franchise's 24th coach since the franchise's last championship in 1973. "I still can't believe it's happened."
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart -- the other two parts of the "Nova Knicks" trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same -- combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
"I don't know what I'm feeling," Brunson said. "I'm in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it."
Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, who got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.
"This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment," Wembanyama said. "I can't tell exactly what the lesson is, but we're learning."
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn't feel like the road, though -- not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.
Story from ESPN News Services
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A famous Knicks fan is telling people to take mass transit to the upcoming NBA Finals.
Comedian Tracy Morgan says his message applies not just to ticket holders who will be showing up at the Garden, but to anyone who will be getting around the city for a Knicks watch party.
New York has a lot riding on the underdog Knicks.
At DraftKings Sportsbook in New York, the Knicks have attracted nearly half of all money wagered on the NBA Finals winner this season -- almost as much as every other team combined.
Now, Victor Wembanyama and the favored San Antonio Spurs are all that stand in the way. On Saturday night, the Spurs opened as high as -220 favorites to win the Finals, with the Knicks installed as approximately +180 underdogs. The price quickly gravitated toward the rested Knicks, and as of Sunday morning, the Spurs were down to -200 favorites.
New York swept its two previous series in the Eastern Conference playoffs and has won 11 straight games. The Knicks haven't played since Monday and will have had eight days off when they tip off against the Spurs on Wednesday in Game 1 of the Finals in San Antonio.
The Spurs, who survived an intense seven-game series against the Oklahoma City Thunder to reach the Finals, are 4.5-point favorites in Game 1.
This is the ninth Finals matchup between a team that swept its previous series and an opponent that was forced to go seven games. The team coming off the sweep went 5-3 in the previous Finals matchups, according to ESPN Research.
Both teams were supported heavily at sportsbooks this season. The Spurs entered the season at 65-1 to win the title at DraftKings Sportsbook and would become the biggest preseason underdogs to win the title in at least 40 seasons, according to archive SportsOddsHistory.com.
The Knicks began the season at 10-1 and saw their championship odds drift to as long as 19-1 during an up-and-down regular season. They reached 35-1 briefly in the postseason, as they struggled with the Atlanta Hawks in their first-round playoff series.
"Knicks are unsurprisingly very heavily bet on in New York, more so than any other state, both per game and in the futures." Caesars Sportsbook lead NBA trader David Lieberman told ESPN, adding that both the Knicks and Spurs are liabilities for the house in the book's futures market.
Wembanyama, who last month was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year, is a -185 favorite to be named Finals MVP at DraftKings Sportsbooks. Since the DPOY was first awarded in 1983, the only player to win that award and Finals MVP in the same season was Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994, according to ESPN Research.br/]
The New York Knicks are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, and they'll face the same opponent they did then, the San Antonio Spurs. You can watch the entire NBA Finals on ABC 7 and the ESPN app.
Game 1: June 3 at Spurs
Game 2: June 5 at Spurs
Game 3: June 8 at Knicks
Game 4: June 10 at Knicks
Game 5*: June 13 at Spurs
Game 6*: June 16 at Knicks
Game 7*: June 19 at Spurs
* if necessary
All games tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET
