Knicks Won This TItle Out of Spite

“He's too small. If your best player is small, you're not winning... Steph Curry is the only dude,” Becky Hammond said.

Trade for Giannis. Why Brunson? Get Mitchell. Fire Mike Brown. They’re not a change; they're just another addition to the 53-year deficit.

Time and time again, when a take or an idea spread about the Knicks through this whole Brunson (yes Brunson) era, New York didn’t go out to prove anything; they did it to spite everyone.

Pre-Brunson

In July 2022, Mitchell Robinson signed a four-year, $60 million contract extension, the first time New York extended a contract in 23 years. While a good rim-running center, it felt like change was starting in New York.

During the 2021–22 season, New York fell hard back to earth. After their first playoff appearance since the Carmelo Anthony era, an immediate regression from the defense and the players themselves led to another year of missing the playoffs. Their biggest need leaving that season: a lead guard.

During the first round of the 2022 playoffs, when Luka Doncic got hurt during their series against Utah, a team that lacked scoring outside of Luka looked hopeless. Then Jalen Brunson showed up. Up to this point, Brunson was a solid bench contributor. Every year, there is one player during the playoffs that ascends to a level we haven’t seen from that player. 2022 was Jalen Brunson’s turn.

The Brunson Signing

“I don't think it really moves the needle for them... You need a superstar, bro,” Patrick Ewing said.

While finally filling the hole of guard long-term with Jalen Brunson, it came with criticisms against him. His lack of size and defense were major concerns from the beginning, but for Brunson, this was just another version of what he’s dealt with for a decade.

After the signing, rumors swirled with the potential of a Donovan Mitchell trade to New York. With the eventual no-deal, this felt like the beginning of a new Knicks era blossoming. If this team was from 10 years ago, deals like that would be finalized before it became a rumor.

The media response from the Brunson signing, combined with the Mitchell rumors, created a barrage of criticism thrown at the organization.

Along with those two, the hiring of Rick Brunson made it feel more shady around the Brunson signing.

This wasn’t the first time New York faced criticism, but this might be the first time their lack of listening to media input was beneficial.

The Anunoby Of It All

During Brunson’s first season in New York, not only did New York return to the playoffs, but Brunson was an All-Star. The Knicks, for the first time since Carmelo Anthony, had a star walking around Madison Square Garden.

But while being a fun team, the beginning of the change from the Garden started when bringing in who fans call ‘The Heart Of The Garden,’ Josh Hart.

While Hart didn’t become an All-Star, he did what Brunson couldn’t do consistently. Due to Brunson’s heavy usage on offense, Hart was brought in not only to give another ballhandler, but a hustle guy.

Then, in free agency, they brought in Donte DiVincenzo, who helped begin the famed ‘Villanova Knicks’ due to Brunson, Donte, and Hart playing together at the famed school during college.

This move and future moves showed what the organization valued more than anything: chemistry over pure talent.

The player that changed this team was OG Anunoby. After years of screaming for Giannis and Embiid deals, the first swing trade was for a 3&D role player wanting a big contract extension.

Getting rid of RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley in the deal, Quickley especially felt, to some, like the best player in the deal. But what Anunoby brought was the anchor of the Knicks’ potential chance at a title.

Even with Randle hurt for most of that season, the Knicks still looked like a capable team to make the conference finals, until injuries decimated whatever they potentially had.

In the offseason after the success from last season, it was all building up to the massive superstar deal to get the ‘real star’ for the Knicks. Instead, they followed their chemistry-over-pure-talent mantra with Mikal Bridges and five first-round picks.

After being traded to Brooklyn from Phoenix in the Kevin Durant trade, Bridges became one of the most surprising breakout players. In New York, not only did he add another reliable scoring option, but he cemented one of the best defensive wing duos in the league with Anunoby.

After an already eventful offseason re-signing Anunoby and getting Bridges, they still somehow refused to be done.

After Mitchell Robinson was hurt in the middle of the season, backup center Isaiah Hartenstein stepped up and became a true starting-caliber center.

With that fact, they were way too outpriced for his services going into his free agency. Now, without Hartenstein and with Robinson still recovering from his injury, their center position was nonexistent. Until Karl-Anthony Towns became available.

After making the conference finals for the first time since Garnett, Minnesota felt like that series against Dallas showed their ceiling with KAT as their second option, and with a second-apron bill looming, it felt like the time to move on.

The Surprise Arrival

Leaving TD Garden up 2–0, they proved something that felt unprecedented. Throughout their first season with Bridges and KAT, it was a good team that seemed to never play their best against the top teams.

Throughout the season, they were a combined 0–8 against the top three seeds in each conference, but now are up 2–0 against Boston?

This was a team that was yelled at as a pretender all season, and now all of a sudden pulls it together against the former champions? What really feels like what changed was their certainty in knowing who they are.

Both wins were when they were down by 20. Wins like that are for teams that, even when down, know who they are and what to do to quiet the storm.

After beating Boston and making the conference finals for the first time since the late 90s, they were on top for the first time in decades. Until they got their throats punched. While you could argue the Knicks might have been a better team than Indiana, the Haliburton shot broke them.

Over time, shots and moments like that break the opposing team, making them unable to come back.

Out of Spite

“I applaud them for lifting us from basketball purgatory into relevance … but in the same breath, when you make the potpourri of decisions that you have made, can you have the decency to stand before the media and answer the questions? … That statement is as weak as it gets,” Stephen A. Smith said.

After their surprise run to the conference finals, instead of celebrating the journey, they wanted to gamble and potentially be good enough to get a title. Hiring Mike Brown was like every other move for New York: a calculated risk. Every move and every signing was risky and was mostly criticized, yet it didn’t matter. They went out of their way to prove they were right all along.

McCollum’s game-winner in Game 2 became the gateway to all the criticism that people wanted to say all along. Throughout a season where runs were followed by slumps, they seemed to know who they were but didn’t know for how long they could sustain who they were.

Now, nine weeks later, standing next to the Larry O’Brien trophy, New York saw all this criticism and gave themselves a bigger reason to play.

Everyone in this organization was critiqued constantly and was never given the benefit of the doubt. Every time the media thought they knew how the Knicks would move, they would change the switch-up.

But this “out of spite” doesn’t just represent the team, but their players. Brunson was too small, KAT just isn’t good enough, etc. This is a team built around proving the higher-ups wrong.