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From Yankee Stadium to the World Cup, the Knicks are living it up after winning NBA championship

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on

Published in Basketball

The Knicks’ championship parade through Lower Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes is set for Thursday morning, but that’s hardly the only stop on their victory tour.

Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and the rest of the Knicks have been living it up since defeating the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday to end the franchise’s 53-year title drought.

Here are some of their notable appearances as New York and New Jersey continue to shower the Knicks with love.

Yankee stadium

The Yankees announced Wednesday that Brunson and Josh Hart would throw out the ceremonial first pitches before that night’s game against the Chicago White Sox in the Bronx.

Brunson, the NBA Finals MVP, previously threw the first pitch before a Subway Series game at Yankee Stadium in July of 2024.

Hart, meanwhile, is a noted Yankees fan whose great-uncle, Elston Howard, is a franchise icon. Howard won four World Series as a player and two more as a coach, and his No. 32 is retired in Monument Park.

FIFA World Cup

Between all of their national media commitments, multiple Knicks made it to MetLife Stadium — or New York New Jersey Stadium, as it’s being called during the World Cup — for Tuesday afternoon’s match between France and Senegal.

OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Miles “Deuce” McBride sat together as France won, 3-1, in the Meadowlands.

Pacome Dadiet, who is French, and Tyler Kolek were also in attendance.

'The Tonight Show'

The Knicks’ prolific run of public appearances included Monday night’s takeover of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” where superfan Spike Lee and the entire roster crashed host Jimmy Fallon’s opening monologue.

Brunson, Towns, Hart, Anunoby, Bridges and head coach Mike Brown sat down for interviews with Fallon, who is a courtside staple at Madison Square Garden.

Fallon had all of the Knicks sign a shoe he wore to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals — the same shoe Hart untied during a stoppage in play in a viral moment that night.

On Monday, Fallon “retired” that shoe and raised it to the studio’s rafters.

And more!

 

Knicks players also appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday.

Towns headlined Tuesday night’s episode of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” on NBC, then sat down for a segment on “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday.

Brunson went on ABC’s “The View” on Monday and on “CBS Mornings” — alongside his dad (and Knicks assistant coach) Rick Brunson — on Wednesday.

“It came from my mom,” Brunson joked on “CBS Mornings” when asked about his leadership style.

“It came from both of them. They did a good job of piggybacking off each other. Dad was … vocal, pushing me and everything, but I didn’t know the conversations that they had behind the scenes about how they could still love me and still push me.”

Masses at the mall

Towns commanded quite the crowd in his native New Jersey.

Social-media footage shows the line to meet Towns at a DICK’S House of Sports store in Jersey City on Tuesday night spanned an entire mall.

A childhood Knicks fan, Towns was born in Edison and played high-school basketball at St. Joseph in Metuchen, N.J.

Connecting with Keys

Anunoby participated in a video call with Alicia Keys on Wednesday to announce the Grammy winner would perform during the City Hall ceremony at Thursday’s Knicks parade.

Keys, who hails from Hell’s Kitchen, is expected to play her prevailing New York City anthem “Empire State of Mind.”

“The city’s been asking for you,” Anunoby asked in a clip shared to social media. “Are you pulling up?”

Keys said, “How could I not? This is my city, and the city’s on fire!”

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©2026 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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