The Knicks are your 2026 NBA champions.
An incredible performance by Jalen Brunson powered New York to its third title in franchise history. Despite an ice-cold shooting night from just about everyone else, New York's superstar point guard and leader refused to let the opportunity to close out the Spurs slip away.
San Antonio showed up in a big way in front of its home crowd and held several double-digit leads throughout the night—but these resilient Knicks just would not give up. They came back to win the day and the championship, capping off one of the best playoff runs in NBA history.
The loss officially means Victor Wembanyama failed in his first swing at a title. The Spurs will be kicking themselves for a long time after the opportunities they wasted throughout the Finals, from the Game 4 meltdown to Game 2’s endgame snafu. The future is extremely bright with Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle playing well beyond their years throughout the postseason, but it’s still a painful loss in what was a winnable series.
As the champagne pops in the visiting locker room of the Frost Bank Center, here are Sports Illustrated’s takeaways from Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals.
Jalen Brunson delivered the Knicks a title
The Knicks have had plenty of postseason heroes in their storied history. Jalen Brunson just surpassed them all. The legend of Willis Reed will live on, but Brunson has taken his spot atop Knicks postseason lore. On Saturday night in San Antonio, Brunson put his team, his franchise and his city on his back and carried them to a title—one they’d been waiting 53 years for.
Brunson finished with 45 points, a Knicks Finals record. He was the best player on the court all night, even as the Spurs jumped out to an early 16-point lead. He had 16 of his team’s 37 first-half points as New York displayed an anemic offense in the first 24 minutes of Game 5. But Brunson took over the second half, dropping 29 points as the Spurs did everything they could to stop him. Despite being smaller and arguably less athletic than the wave of defenders San Antonio’s sent at him, Brunson kept coming. He slithered and found gaps at the rim, deftly juked and stepped back to make room for jumpers, and wisely used ball-fakes to draw fouls.
The Knicks went all-in on Brunson in the summer of 2022, signing him as their franchise point guard and handing him the keys to the kingdom. It turned out to be one of the best decisions the franchise has ever made. In the biggest moments during this postseason, he stepped up and closed like the star he is.
The Knicks are champions. That’s a sentence that hasn’t been typed in 53 years. They have Jalen Brunson to thank.
Another epic collapse by the Spurs
After the Knicks completed a 29-point comeback to take Game 4 on OG Anunoby’s now-famous game-winning tip-in, the Spurs blew it once again. With the season on the line, San Antonio controlled Game 5 throughout, setting the tone early with elite defensive pressure as Wembanyama asserted his dominance. The Spurs led by as many as 16 points in the game and still led by double digits in the fourth quarter, but went cold once again late as the inevitable Brunson barrage took place.
Before the Knicks took the lead with three and a half minutes left in Game 5, San Antonio led from the eight-minute mark in the first quarter. At that point, the Knicks had led for only 19 seconds in the game. New York was the more veteran team, but San Antonio was considered the more talented group ahead of the Finals. The Spurs’ youth came back to bite them, as it looked like Wemby and his supporting cast ran out of gas down the stretch in multiple games, including Game 5 as the Knicks secured the title.
Wemby missed two free throws late in Game 4, then missed one in the clutch and got beat by Mitchell Robinson on a critical rebound in Game 5. There’s a ton on Wemby’s shoulders, and this was his first playoff run after all. Although the young Spurs absolutely fell apart toward the end of the last two games, they got some invaluable experience as the franchise looks to be a title contender for many years to come. It’s just hard to see that right now.
Knicks complete one of the best postseason runs in NBA history
Over the Knicks’ run to the NBA championship, they lost just once from April 24 to June 13. Now they hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. New York’s run included a historic 13-game playoff winning streak, which ran from Game 4 of its first-round series against the Hawks all the way until Game 3 of the NBA Finals, the Knicks' lone loss to the Spurs in the NBA Finals. What followed that rare loss was two epic comeback wins to secure the title and complete one of the best playoff runs we’ve ever seen.
No matter what each game held, these Knicks found a way. Whether it was Brunson’s heroics, Anunoby’s iconic tip-in, Towns’s hot stretches, Hart’s winning plays or the efforts from Landry Shamet and the rest of the bench, this group had the answers. Their 13-game winning streak is the second-best heater in NBA history. Only the 2017 Warriors topped it as they won 15 in a row on the way to the title. If New York hadn’t dropped Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks would have matched the record.
You can say all you want about the competition in the East, but no team has bludgeoned its opponents like the Knicks did over the entirety of the playoffs. The games tightened up against the Spurs in the Finals, but they continued to find a way. For the season, it was presumed that the Western Conference’s representative would have the upper hand strictly because the Spurs and the Thunder appeared in a class of their own. The Knicks’ epic run proved they belonged in that conversation. And, in fact, the Knicks are now the class of the NBA after dismantling the Spurs in five games.
A 53-year drought is over
Go crazy, New York. After more than five decades of waiting, the Knicks are champions once again.
It’s fitting that this was the team that finally got the franchise over the hump. Throughout the playoffs, it wasn’t just stars like Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns winning games for New York. Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and others provided big moments. This was a balanced, rugged, two-way squad that embodied everything Knicks fans have wanted their team to be.
In the days ahead, plenty will be written about this championship run, but the celebration won’t solely belong to the players who brought the trophy back to New York. It will be shared by the franchise legends who came close but never got to finish the job. Guys like Bernard King, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Allan Houston, Carmelo Anthony, Charles Oakley and so many more.
Fifty-three years is a long time to wait for a championship. This run, this team and this celebration have made it all worth it.
