The New York Knicks Are One Win Away From Ending Their 53-year NBA Title Drought

The New York Knicks are one win away from snapping a 53-year NBA title drought as they head to San Antonio for Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals on Saturday night with a 3-1 lead after a historic comeback in Game 4 on Wednesday night.

As the San Antonio Spurs looked poised to tie the series with a huge win, the Knicks fought back from 27 down to steal a victory on a last-second tip-in from OG Anunoby, a moment center Karl-Anthony Towns, a New York native who grew up as a Knicks fan, compared to some of his best memories.

“It’s high up on the list of New York [sports] moments,”  Towns told the media as he reflected on the moment on Friday. “I think of Derek Jeter hitting the home run to right field. I think of stuff like that. It just scrapes the wall and gets over. … That’s going to be up there with some of the greatest moments in New York sports history.”

With the win, the anticipation builds for another potentially great moment in New York sports history: the end of one of the league’s longest title droughts. The Knicks last won an NBA Championship in 1973, when guys like Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Dick Barnett, and Dave DeBusschere were on the team. Those jerseys now hang in the rafters of Madison Square Garden, and each of those players is now a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

But they know there is still work to be done, and it won’t be easy to finish off San Antonio.

“We know they’ll come out with a lot of energy,” guard Josh Hart said. “They’ve been doing that all playoffs, and we’ve been very up-and-down with that a lot this year. So, we’ve got to make sure we come in focused with a great attention to detail and take things one possession at a time. If we do that and if we play solid basketball, we’re going to put ourselves in a good position to be successful.”

While Hart hasn’t won an NBA championship in his nine-year career, he did win an NCAA championship with current teammates Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges under former head coach Jay Wright at Villanova in 2016.

“Coach Wright did a great job of teaching us how to win and what it takes, and I think that’s what we can take from it is just knowing how hard it is to get here and how hard it is to win,” Bridges explained. “I think that’s helped us, and for us being teammates, it’s really cool being in this moment. But we’ve still got a job to do, and we’re not there yet.”