Karl-Anthony Towns on Knicks' run to NBA Finals: 'There's nowhere better in the world when the Garden has hope'
CLEVELAND — When the Knicks won two rounds of playoff series a year ago and the celebrations in the street were accompanied by street signs mounted all around Manhattan to honor each player on the roster, the critics sniffed at the early festivities, noting that the Knicks really hadn’t won anything yet.
But the critics didn’t understand, maybe hadn’t been around to feel the dreary pain that had accompanied the franchise for decades, didn’t live through all of the dysfunction and disasters. And they didn’t know how much it meant to those who had to find something to cling to, to find hope again.
So if the players didn’t pour champagne or celebrate wildly on Monday night after the Knicks dominated once again to finish off a sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers and advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years, they understood. They got what it felt like to the fans who journeyed to Rocket Arena to witness this, to the fans who crowded Radio City Music Hall for a watch party, and really, to anyone who had been waiting so long for this.
“It means the world,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “I grew up a Knicks fan. It’s documented. And I think what’s more of an honor is growing up in the area, I feel like the word hope has been gone from the New York Knicks for a long time . . . To be part of this team that revives the word hope in the city, it’s something special. It’s something really, really special, and it’s an honor.
“It’s one of those things when I was growing up watching the Knicks and was just hoping one day I could just put the jersey on — I never knew I would be in this position at this mic talking about us going to the Finals and this city believing in us. And that speaks a lot to the camaraderie of this team and the character of this team, the willingness, the sacrifice everyone’s been willing to put forward for the betterment of the team. There’s nowhere better in the world when the Garden has hope.”
It has been a long time since they had hope, or at least real hope, the “We can win it all” hope. And maybe even now there are still doubters even after 11 straight wins in the most dominant fashion possible — the largest margin of victory (23.8 points per game) in that span by any NBA team, postseason or regular season.
But there are believers, too, those who remember what it was like when Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and all the other Knicks legends whose jerseys hang in the rafters at Madison Square Garden captured the heart of the city with a pair of championship runs in 1970 and 1973. Those title quests still inspire stories passed down from those who watched to their kids and grandkids.
And some of them were even on the court Monday night as the trophies were handed out with the arena still half-full with Knicks fans savoring this moment.
“It’s been a long time,” Frazier said. “Carrying on a tradition, passing it down to Jalen [Brunson]. So he’s the guy now who has to carry it, but you have to capitalize when you get there. So we’re going to stay on him. As Red Holzman would tell us at this point, ‘Hey Clyde, we ain’t won nothing yet.’ ”
Knicks superfan Spike Lee recalled that in 1970, "I was at the Willis Reed game, 13 years old. This is a team of destiny, heart, drive. We’re intelligent . . . This is a team. This reminds me of Willis, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Dick Barnett, Walt Frazier, Cazzie Russell, Dave Stallworth, Nate Bowman. We’re going back. I’m old. 1970 is a long time. We’ve been close. Got to give love to [team president] Leon Rose, the architect, smart moves, basketball is a city game. This is a [expletive] city game. This team is great. This city, hey, I’ve been saying this from the beginning, we’d better win this on the road.”
It's an understandable point by Lee, who is part of celebrity row, but has paid for his own tickets for decades, to consider that a win in New York might test the budget of the NYPD because the fans haven’t been waiting for a parade route to be plotted out, spilling into the streets to chant and dance and celebrate each win.
It is a connection that provides a clear line from those championship teams to this one, a team built around a star in Brunson, but is playing the game in a way that inspires books and legends. Each game seems to find a new star to emerge, and doing it on both ends of the floor with unselfishness and a fire that burns as brightly as the passion of the fan base. So seeing Frazier and Patrick Ewing handing Brunson the trophies Monday night seemed to unite all of that history with the present.
“No question. That’s legacy right there,” said John Starks, who was part of the 1994 NBA Finals run. “Those two guys were pillars of this organization for so many years. To be able to see them be able to hand out those trophies, it means a lot. It means a lot to me. Obviously, I played with Patrick and I know how much his love for this organization is, and for the city, as well as with Clyde, understanding what he brought to the table and the championships that he brought here to New York. It was just a beautiful thing to see.”
“It's cool. You can see it,” said Landry Shamet, who went a remarkable 11-for-12 on three-pointers in the Eastern Conference Finals. “It's special, and you see obviously what it means to them. And even only wearing a Knicks jersey for two years, I understand, too. There's a real pride, you know? . . . We don't take it lightly. And it adds to our collective fuel and camaraderie and how we feel. So it's good to obviously celebrate this with them, but they know as well as we do that there's more to do.”
That’s for another day. Right now, the joy is earned and the hope is real.
“I’m gonna enjoy this moment flying back with my teammates, having this understanding of what we’ve done,” Towns said. “It's a magical thing, a historical thing. It’s something that New York has been dying for for a long, long time, and we’ll enjoy that plane right, but once we get in those cars and go to our respective homes, it’s gonna be back to business . . . And we’ll enjoy this moment tonight, and that’s OK. It’s OK for New York, the fans, us, our fan base to enjoy this moment and be jubilant about this, but for us as the players, we understand that the job’s not done, and we gotta get back to work tomorrow, and there’s no better day to start than tomorrow with the next series.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
