Kristian Winfield: The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on May 25, 2026

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CLEVELAND — Kenny Atkinson had a grand plan.

His Cavaliers, staring at a 3-0 Eastern Conference finals deficit no team in NBA history has overcome, just needed to win one game.

One game to plant even the smallest seed of doubt into the minds of the hottest team in basketball, the New York Knicks. One win to prove Cleveland could derail a freight train barreling toward its first NBA Finals appearance since 1999.

One win to prove the Cavaliers had more fight than the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers, the two teams who folded in elimination games against the Knicks, who entered Monday winning closeout games this postseason by an absurd average margin of 40.5 points.

Atkinson’s plan backfired spectacularly.

No moment captured the unraveling more than Donovan Mitchell pleading with his teammates during a timeout after Landry Shamet buried a corner 3 to put the Knicks up 20 just 10 minutes through the second quarter.

Mitchell’s desperation — much like Atkinson’s — fell on deaf ears.

The Cavaliers became the Knicks’ latest victim.

And now, for the first time since 1999 and just the sixth time since 1970, the New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals.

Yes. The NBA Finals.

One more time for the people in the back: the NBA Finals — the exact destination James Dolan publicly demanded during his January appearance on WFAN Radio.

And fittingly, the Knicks punched their ticket the same way they’ve steamrolled through the Eastern Conference all postseason long: by dusting off the same trusty belt they used to bludgeon Atlanta and Philadelphia and applying it with force in a resounding 130-93 demolition inside Rocket Arena.

The Knicks are your new Eastern Conference champions.

“We all had that aspiration regardless, so we didn’t really need to hear that [mandate from ownership] because we all wanted that moment,” Karl-Anthony Towns said Monday morning. “Especially after last year being in the Eastern Conference finals and coming up short. We understood that we had to take that next step.”

And with that step comes validation.

Validation for trading five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges, who has played the best basketball of his Knicks career over the last month.

Validation for trading Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo — painful as it was to lose the latter — to acquire Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Validation for firing Tom Thibodeau after a 51-win season and conference finals appearance, then replacing him with Mike Brown after striking out on several marquee coaching candidates.

Validation for trading RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley for OG Anunoby, who has emerged as arguably the most versatile defender in basketball not named Victor Wembanyama.

And perhaps most importantly?

Validation for betting the franchise on a 6-foot-1-ish point guard named Jalen Brunson.

Brunson is no longer just an isolation scorer. No longer just a small guard critics once questioned as a championship centerpiece.

He is one of the best leaders in basketball.

He is the Eastern Conference finals MVP.

And if this run continues? Finals MVP may not be far behind.

The Knicks now sit four wins away from a championship while the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs continue battering each other in a Western Conference finals series suddenly destined for seven games.

There’s another decision worthy of praise, too: Dolan’s choice to break his radio silence during the Knicks’ ugliest stretch of the regular season, while they spiraled losing nine in an 11-game stretch shortly after winning the NBA Cup final in mid-December.

Brown and his players insist the public mandate changed nothing. They already expected this of themselves. But there’s something different about hearing the owner signing the checks publicly declare Finals-or-bust expectations.

“We better get to the Finals, or we’re gonna get traded,” Josh Hart joked Monday. “Obviously, it hits a little bit different when the big dog says it.”

The Knicks don’t have to worry about trade rumors anymore. No more whispers about dismantling the core. No more looming Giannis Antetokounmpo speculation hanging over the franchise.

The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals.

And maybe the sweetest part of all?

They did it in front of their own fans.

The same rabid, rowdy fans who invaded Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. The same rabid, rowdy fans who turned Philadelphia’s Xfinity Mobile Arena into Madison Square Garden South. Those fans took over Rocket Arena and transformed Cleveland’s home floor into another Knicks home game.

The Knicks aren’t just headed to the Finals. They’re dragging an entire city with them.

And not just any city. New York City. The mecca of basketball. The city that never sleeps can finally rest easy knowing their beloved Knicks franchise may very well, at long last, be in capable, trustworthy hands.