Knicks win... first time they have been champions in 53 years

There are only a few teams left in the NBA that were there right at the start. In fact, there are only 3 and of those 3 just 2 of them are still in the same city that they started out in. In 1946 there were 11 teams and 8 of them folded. The only two remaining legacy teams that are still in the same city they began in are the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks - who were previously the Kickerbockers.

Defying all odds the Knicks went from being underdogs in almost every matchup they had in the tournament to winning it all with what appeared to be relative ease.

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I suppose there is some level of disappointment that they were unable to win the game in front of their home crowd, but nobody is ever going to throw a game (intentionally lose) to have a chance at that because that could end up meaning they lose the entire thing.

I was one of the people that never gave the Knicks a shot at this but my reasons were grounded in cold hard statistics. They were a decent team in the regular season but they weren't a standout best team. That honor belonged to Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Boston, and Detroit. All of these teams but one underperformed in the playoffs.

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It was pretty easy to predict who the Championship MVP was going to be this year because it was either going to be Victor Wemmy, or Jalen Brunson. You almost never give the MVP to a player whose team loses and in fact it has only happened once with Jerry West in 1969. As far as the overall MVP is concerned, that was awarded to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City back in May. The two awards are mutually exclusive and I would imagine back in mid May, almost all pundits presumed that OKC was going to be the champions yet they didn't even make it to the finals. I know I had heavy predictions on OKC winning, but as is often the case and especially in this tournament, a lot of predictions end up being wrong. I was wrong more often than I was right this time so if anyone in the future would like to make some money on betting, just pick whatever the opposite is of what I say.

Jalen was an easy choice for MVP especially given his absolutely stellar performance in game 5 where he scored 45 points including 13-15 at the free-throw line. He was simply unstoppable the entire game and he played more of it than anyone else on his team.

Once again though, San Antonio started this game out like they were going to make the Knicks go to the wire but things just kind of fell apart late in the game. The Spurs were up by 10 after 1, 5 after 2, 7 after 3, and then they lose the game by 4 being outscored 29 to 18 in the 4th. I can only imagine how heartbreaking that must have been for Spurs fans that were in attendance and paying thousands of dollars for the luxury of being there.

If you look at the Knicks' road to the finals, you can understand why most people didn't give them a fair shake.

There is absolutely nothing wrong or even unusual about a number 3 seed making it as far as they did, but to not lose a single game after the first round on your way to the finals? That is something that has never been done before. They decimated Philly and Cleveland (I was particularly happy about them beating Philly) and this was pretty amazing because they had given us no indication that they were capable of this in the first round, or any of the regular season. What a surprise? Were they waiting for the right moment to unleash their true power?

How did they lose 2 games to Atlanta, who many thought was the weakest team in the entire tournament? Sometimes the post-season doesn't make a lot of sense but one thing is for certain, this was no fluke.

Now let's just hope that the New Yorkers don't destroy their own city in celebration, which sadly does seem to be a bit of a tradition up there.