SAN ANTONIO — As if a 53-year wait wasn’t long enough, the New York Knicks needed to be the conqueror of comebacks before they could again be kings of the NBA.Mission accomplished.The Knickerbockers, residents of the world’s most famous arena, an original NBA franchise founded in 1946, named for the city’s Dutch settlers, are champions for the first time since 1973 and for just the third time in team history. They stunned the San Antonio Spurs, again, with another come-from-behind win in Game 5 of the 2026 finals, 94-90.Jalen Brunson, the likely finals MVP and heart and soul of this team, carried an otherwise struggling Knicks offense in the clincher with 45 points.New York took down the Spurs, 4-1, winning all three games in San Antonio and setting an NBA Finals record by coming from 29 points down in the second half to win Game 4 with the OG Anunoby tip heard ’round the world. The Knicks’ only loss in the series was also historic, coming on a night when a sitting U.S. president, Donald J. Trump of New York, attended a finals game.The Knicks mounted yet another comeback in Game 5. This one was smaller (16 points), but they nevertheless won a series in which they trailed by at least 10 points in the first quarter of every game. New York trailed by seven when the fourth quarter began and was down 10 before mounting one more rally for the ages.The final four minutes were tense, with teams trading buckets and leads. Brunson’s 12-footer with 1:05 left gave the Knicks a 90-88 lead. Spurs rookie Dylan Harper, their best player on Saturday night, missed a 3, and Josh Hart sank a foul shot with 26.1 seconds remaining. He missed the second, but Mitchell Robinson, on the court because Knicks star center Karl-Anthony Towns fouled out, saved the possession with a rebound. Anunoby, New York’s Game 4 hero, made one of two free throws also to put the Knicks up four.Stephon Castle, suffering through his worst game of the finals, made his first field goal of the game on a put-back dunk off a Victor Wembanyama missed 3 with 16.3 seconds left. The Knicks won the ensuing free throw contest, finished by Anunoby’s make with 7.7 seconds to go.Wembanyama, the 22-year-old French sensation who is angling to be the next standard bearer for the sport, has to wait on that. He finished with 19 points and 14 boards. When his final 3-point try missed near the buzzer, the thousands of New York fans in the upper deck erupted in thunderous applause. Harper led the Spurs with 25 points off the bench.Fifty-three years is a long time for the Larry O’Brien trophy to travel the few blocks from NBA offices on Fifth Avenue back to the Garden on Eighth Avenue. Five-plus decades ago, a haze of smoke floated above the fans at the Garden. Willis Reed limped onto the floor for the 1970 title. Walter “Clyde” Frazier dominated. Red Holzman worked the sideline.And then, more than five decades of waiting, was it nothing? There were the near-misses in 1994 and 1999. Names that will be a part of Knicks lore forever. Bernard King and Patrick Ewing and John Starks. Charles Oakley and Allan Houston and Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony.New York’s last appearance in a finals before this came in June 1999. James Dolan took over the Knicks that October when he was appointed chairman of Madison Square Garden. For more than 26 years, he fought with the NBA, with famous Knicks alumni and with fans who booed him. Even toward the end of this magical championship run, he clashed with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani in a blame fest over outdoor watch-party cancellations.But Dolan’s reign will forever be viewed differently than it otherwise would have, because of the 2026 championship.It’s a new dawn, a new day and New Yorkers are feeling good.From journeyman coach Mike Brown to the Nova Knicks. From an alumnus of the franchise’s last finals team, who happened to take a job as an assistant coach one month before his budding superstar son signed as a free agent, to trades for a stray KAT and the newest of the city’s Bridges, the Knicks are again kings of the biggest city on basketball’s biggest stage.The Big Apple is no stranger to major sports titles, of course. The Yankees have won seven World Series since 1973; the Giants won four Super Bowls and the Islanders captured four Stanley Cups; the Mets, Rangers, and Liberty each have a championship since then.But the Knicks? This one hits differently in a place known as the mecca of basketball. The wait had stretched more than a half-century.“We want to say ‘salute the wives of Knicks fans’ because they went through a lot their whole life,” said Joseph Cartagena, a South Bronx native better known as hip-hop star “Fat Joe.” Cartagena, who was born a few months after the Knicks’ first championship in 1970, is one of the many dedicated Knick fans who populate Celebrity Row at the Garden.“I’ve seen Hasidic Jews breakdancing with Black kids outside the stadium,” Cartagena added. “This is the greatest unification you’ve ever seen of New York City in your life since 9/11. If you want to know what we felt like in 9/11 after the tragedy.