Madison Square Garden waited 53 years to hand out championship rings, and what a glorious celebration it was. Knicks fans were losing their minds, Spike Lee looked like he was finally vindicated, and the ring/banner combo was luxurious.
You ever seen a championship ring that turns into an arena, son??
And it took the Philadelphia 76ers
about two and a half hours to make the whole thing feel like the beginning of the end. Knicks legends handed out the jewelry, the banner went up, and then Philly walked into the building and won 106-100.
Roughly 1,600 miles southwest, the reigning Western Conference champion Spurs were preparing for a revenge tour after fumbling a title away to the Knicks a few months ago. But while the Knicks raised a championship banner, San Antonio raised nothing and got the smackdown laid on them by the previous NBA champion, the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC came into San Antonio and beat them 116-104, a defeat so sound even the greatest Spurs fan apologist would have to hang their head in shame.
So the two teams that met in June’s Finals both started 0-1. If you’re a Warriors fan, you’ve seen this movie. Hell, you’ve starred in it. But let’s give the Knicks their rightful due as champs and focus on them for this exercise.
Deep breath….how come nobody warned the Knicks that ring night ain’t no joke?!
Here’s what makes the L especially sting: it was Philly. The Knicks swept the Sixers in the second round last spring on the way to a 16-3 playoff run, and a sweep like that usually tells a team it’s a few levels short of contending. Philly didn’t treat that sweep like a minor setback. They treated it like a demolition order, went out and added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, and came back looking for revenge. Those moves turned a team New York had already handled into a team built to beat New York specifically.
For a half, the Knicks looked like they’d sidestep the ring-night hangover. They were up 58-54 at the break and playing with some poise. Then the third quarter got sloppy, New York finished the night shooting 37%, and when Karl-Anthony Towns hit a three to cut the deficit to 96-95, Joel Embiid walked right back down and answered with one of his own.
Tyrese Maxey had 28 while the newly acquired Brown had 19 points, eight rebounds, and six assists. LeBron put up a chill 14-9-7 and then told reporters that winning on somebody else’s ring night was “pretty special”. Twenty-four seasons in and the man still collects other people’s celebrations like trophies. And don’t get it twisted, HE’S AN OHIO BABY!
Dub Nation knows what it’s like to fumble an emotional ring night, like on October 17th, 2017. Oracle Arena. The Warriors were raising the banner from the Kevin Durant revenge tour, Durant was getting his first ring, the rings themselves had more diamondsthan any championship ring in the history of the four major American sports, and the Houston Rockets showed up with Chris Paul playing his first game in red. The Warriors led by 17 but Houston clawed back to steal a one-point win.
Houston to the Warriors was as the Philly is to the Knicks of this era, and not just because they were mad at the Dubs. Daryl Morey built that roster as an answer key to the Warriors’ switching defense. Golden State’s whole identity was switching everything, so Houston loaded up on two of the best isolation guards on earth and spent possession after possession hunting Steph on switches until the defense broke.
It nearly worked. Seven months after ring night, Houston had the Warriors down 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals, and if Chris Paul’s hamstring holds up, Houston fans would argue the Warriors lose that series. Hilariously crazy hypothetical since that era of Rockets basketball was literally incapable of eliminating the Warriors from the playoffs, but that opening night game proved just how intense the rivalry was and how close the margins were.
So when I watch Philly celebrating on the Knicks’ own ring night, I see potentially more than a regular-season win. I see a team that rebuilt itself around one opponent telling New York exactly where it plans to be in May. That’s why the ring night loss isn’t the scary part. It’s about the full season of taking everyone’s best shot while all your rivals gain more and more intel on your strengths, weaknesses, and emotional temperature.
The Warriors have won six Western Conference titles since 2015, and no other team in the West has more than one in that span. That’s four championships in eight seasons and four ring nights. And for all that dominance, the Warriors successfully defended their title exactly once.
Funny how that works. Steph said that night in 2022 that ring night is never an easy game. He was talking about the nerves of one evening, but I think it describes the whole year after. When you’re climbing the first time, you’re preparing to beat everybody. The second time up, everybody has spent the summer preparing to beat you. Houston built a roster to attack our switches. Philly went out and got LeBron and Jaylen to get past the team that swept them. And the Knicks are going to see that same energy from Miami, Cleveland, Boston and whoever else circled the Garden on their schedule.
Brunson told the crowd before tipoff that the joy the city felt this summerwas something the team would love to replicate. Every champion says some version of that on ring night, including the dynasty Dubs. New York got its nemesis on opening night. Now it gets to find out whether it can survive the six months that follow.
