Dolan asked Knicks to sacrifice for title in April speech

New York Knicks owner James Dolan delivered an impassioned speech in front of his team before the playoffs, imploring the players to seize the opportunity and asking that they make certain sacrifices to achieve their goal of winning a championship.

The video, released Monday on thepodcast "Roommates Show"hosted byJalen Brunson and Josh Hart, was from April 3, with five games left in the regular season. The Knicks won the next four regular-season games before sitting their starters for the last game. They then went 16-3 in the playoffs, including a record-13-game winning streak, and beat the San Antonio Spurs in five games for their first title since 1973.

"This team can win it all," Dolan said, holding a piece of paper that looked like notes for a prepared speech. "I don't know if you understand what it would mean for you to win the championship this year. ... It would be life-changing for all of you.

"It will stick with you for the rest of your lives, and if you don't win it, you'll be thinking about it the rest of your lives, and so will I."

Dolan addressed the firing of coach Tom Thibodeau and hiring of Mike Brown, who was sitting nearby. Dolan credited Thibodeau, as he had done publicly in early January on a New York radio show, but stood behind the coaching change. Dolan said he and team president Leon Rose believed the Knicks' roster was good enough to win.

"So we thought that you needed a coach that would pull you together, that would have you play as a team," Dolan said. "And although it's not been perfect, but we believe that together, a joint effort would be better for the team that would give us a shot at winning a championship rather than relying on one person's opinion, and that's the team that we have now."

Dolan repeated that a 10-week playoff run wasn't that long, but it would have lifelong rewards if the Knicks ended a 53-year championship drought.

"When people introduce you, even if you become the President of the United States, right, they'll start off with 'NBA champion 2026,' I guarantee it," Dolan said. "We have a rare and unique opportunity to do it. And it's not just you guys, the players, it's all of us."

He urged the players not to talk to reporters, to pay more attention to their diets, sleep better and even abstain from sex.

"I had this idea that maybe you should give up sex for the next 10 weeks," Dolan said with a chuckle. "The Spartans, they denied themselves, right, so they can have an edge. Get the edge. Go home, talk to your wives ... don't tell them it was my idea. But let them know what this is going to be like, what this commitment is going to be like."

Dolan added that wives and significant others would get rings "when we win the championship," and the players have to follow their coach "blindly" for the playoffs.

"Your coach has the answers to what we need to do in order to win," Dolan said. "You have to take his guidance. Dedicate yourselves to correcting the things that he has pointed out to you.

"You got to leave nothing on the table. You must go for it."br/]