Knicks Aiming for a Different Trophy After NBA Cup Win

The New York Knicks aren’t satisfied with an NBA Cup championship.

New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, left, shoots the ball past San Antonio Spurs forward Julian Champagnie during an NBA Cup championship basketball game, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Las Vegas. Kirby Lee/Pool Photo via AP

For the first time in 52 years, the New York Knicks got a taste of what could be.

The Knicks won the NBA Cup with a 124–113 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday in Las Vegas for the in-season tournament championship. While New York can now hang a banner for the relatively young tournament, it’s essentially a regular season win, and these Knicks want so much more.

“I’m very excited,” Knicks star guard and tournament MVP Jalen Brunson told ESPN afterward. “It was a goal of ours that we get to check off. It’s an important stepping stone for us. We can still learn from this game and get better as well. I’m very thankful for the opportunity that we presented ourselves … we found a way to win.”

New York hasn’t won an NBA championship since 1973, when it defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in a 4–1 series victory. Willis Reed led a Hall of Fame-laden crew that year to the title, but the trophy case has been barren since, despite the Hall of Fame players who have come and gone at Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks reached the NBA Finals twice since, in 1994 and 1999, with an all-time great center in Patrick Ewing, but fell short both times. This group of Knicks is fresh off an Eastern Conference finals appearance last season and look determined to make a run for the title and erase a 52-year drought.

“We’re going to celebrate this one tonight,” Knicks star center Karl-Anthony Towns told reporters after the game. “We’re going to hold this Cup championship dear to our heart, but now it’s time to work on the second one.”

The crew of Brunson, OG Anunoby, Towns, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart, and Mitchell Robinson already have a mini-league title of sorts in hand. All teams participate in the NBA Cup, which began in 2023, with group play followed by elimination rounds.

New York went 3–1 in East Group C and then beat the Toronto Raptors 117–111 on Dec. 9 and the Orlando Magic 132–120 on Dec. 13 to reach the final. San Antonio notably beat the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder 111–109 to reach the championship game.

Against the Spurs, Brunson stepped up with 25 points and Anunoby led the way with 28 points. Defensively, the Knicks held Spurs star center Victor Wembanyama to two points in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks outscored the Spurs 35–19 in the final frame.

“A game like this, an environment like this, you don’t really see around the NBA too often,” Brunson said. “We’ve got to take advantage of the experience that we got here.”

New York has an 18–7 record, the second-best mark in the Eastern Conference. It also doesn’t hurt that the past two Eastern Conference champions, the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers, are missing their top players for most of the season due to injury. Boston lost Jayson Tatum, and Indiana lost Tyrese Haliburton, during the playoffs last season.

New York came up short against the Pacers in last season’s Eastern Conference finals after the Pacers stunned the short-handed Celtics. The Knicks subsequently fired previous head coach Tom Thibodeau and brought in Mike Brown in hopes to finally hang a championship banner.

Brown’s squad has a wide open East as the Cleveland Cavaliers, last season’s No. 1 seed, have struggled to a 15–12 record. Other typical playoff teams such as the Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, and Milwaukee Bucks have likewise been struggling at around .500 or worse. Instead, the emerging Detroit Pistons (21–5) could be a threat to the Knicks in the East.

Of course, there’s the ever-loaded Western Conference. The Thunder (24–2) look poised for back-to-back titles, although the Spurs showed that the Thunder can be beaten in a playoff-like atmosphere. The Lakers, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, and Minnesota Timberwolves also look like serious threats in the West.