We all got it slightly wrong. After the first round, it was never Knicks in six, as poetic as the phrase imminently is. It was Knicks in ’26.

Down double-digits yet again at halftime, I nevertheless had full confidence, after all of what we’d already seen, that the New York Knicks were going to win the championship. I told Megan, Steve and anybody else who would listen. They believed, for they had also borne witness.

Believe though I did that this would be the ultimate outcome, more or less for the transitive property than for any other reason once the San Antonio Spurs literally and metaphorically got the Oklahoma City Thunder out of the paint, I was nervous for every one of these games.

Only at the final whistle on Saturday night did I feel an unfamiliar warmth in the familiar heat of the East Village. We marched from Avenue A up to Madison Square Garden, high-fiving strangers and chanting the various Knicks chants. This is why you live in New York City. This is when it feels like nine million become one, for this team, on a gorgeous June night. The country’s biggest city became not much more than one giant neighborhood for the duration of this run. All the pieces matter.