Knicks Bring NBA Cup To NYC
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
By Joshua Garcia
Brunson Named 2025 NBA CUP MVP
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” radiated out of third story windows down every Avenue in Manhattan as the New York Knicks became Champions for only the second time in Franchise history. Who would have imagined then it would be 52 years before as Center Karl Anthony Towns put it, you would see Knicks and the word ‘Champions’ on the same T shirt.
Anyone tuned into the NBA even casually, knows it’s not the NBA championship, but can you chastise a City so starved for success in a town synonymous with basketball and creating the sport’s talent for being excited on winning the Emirates NBA Cup? Throw in the background of New York’s baseball teams losing stars daily and it’s football teams embarrassingly vying for the NFL Draft’s top pick yet again, and who wouldn’t want to climb a street light on 34th street after beating one of the best teams in the NBA on the biggest stage in December?
When the final bracket came out of teams that earned their way to Las Vegas for the Semifinals and Finals of the NBA Cup, most assumed the Knicks would play the one-loss Oklahoma City Thunder for the rights to be named Champion. Well, the San Antonio Spurs and breakout Superstar Victor Wembanyama flipped the script, upsetting the reigning Champs, giving them their second loss of the season and sending them home without a matchup against New York for the NBA Cup.
Despite eluding the matchup of OKC and the Knicks creating “Fomo”, a showdown between the young Superstars of the Spurs lead by their Goliath sized big man Victor Wembanyama against the best small man since Allen Iverson in Knicks Captain Jalen Brunson is absolute box office must-see TV, and the game did not disappoint. In a back-and-forth battle, it definitively underlined and showcased two NBA teams on the rise and was easily one of the higher level of play contests seen in the league this season. And even though the game doesn’t equate to a championship or equivalent, it is exactly what the Knicks need to get where they want to go.
For the New York Knicks this NBA Cup and playing well against the best young up-and-coming team not named the Thunder, is like sparring with a World Champion Boxer while you are training to win your own Title. Nothing can show you what you are capable of or what you need to do to get to the top of the mountain, other than high pressure moments in big stakes situations like the NBA CUP presents. Those are not December regular season minutes no matter how you slice it, it’s heavy on the experience with a big side of confidence, and the Knicks scooped it all up in Vegas, and it could pay off bigtime in the upcoming playoffs.
Discounters of the importance and authenticity of the NBA Cup have little to stand on other than the future predictor of success for the NBA Cup Champion. Although both the first champions, the Los Angeles and the Milwaukee Bucks both lost in the first round of the playoffs, the MVPs were Lebron James, Giannis Antetekounpo, and now Jalen Brunson. These NBA Cup Champions can hardly be seen as flukes. For instance, the Knicks and Spurs are both in the top three seeds of their respective conferences, the world may very well have witnessed an NBA Finals preview.
In coming from behind in the 124-113 win, the Knicks outscored San Antonio 35-19 in the 4th quarter. New York went on 13-1 run to begin and never looked back. Amongst the biggest takeaways from the NBA Cup is once again OG Anunoby showed who is the Knicks Robin to Batman Brunson. Anunoby put up a game where the MVP of the NBA Cup was pushed into debate, and had Jalen Brunson not had an entire tournament of torching his competition, OG may have held up the most valuable award. More importantly however, a 28 point 9 rebound 3 assist type statline where he took on the personal responsibility of locking up the Spurs offensive threats on defense will surely help New York navigate through the Eastern Conference Playoffs and hopefully, to their first NBA Championship since 1973.
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