The Finals' 14 most important Knicks

Well, Knicks-adjacent people, anyway

The most exhilarating championship run I can remember sure had a lot of heroes.

You don’t go 16-3 in the playoffs without everyone having their moment. It takes a village to break down 53 years of failure and build up success. Here’s my attempt at rank-ordering them by importance; Knicks fans, feel free to drop your own lists in the comments!

Before we begin, a quick honorable mention to Mike Breen, who didn’t contribute on the court but has been one of the best play-by-play guys for years. The Yonkers-born broadcaster has been announcing Knicks games since the early ‘90s, and he’s had to watch the absolute worst that NBA basketball has to offer in the decades since. His ability to stay calm and composed on the mic as his lifelong team finally broke through and won a championship was incredibly admirable. I was happy for him.

Now, to the official list.

14) Wu-Tang Clan

Wu-Tang was the halftime entertainment at Game 4. As the legendary performers walked off the stage, with the home team down an unreal 27 points and the crowd uneasily picturing a 2-2 split going back to San Antonio, Method Man predicted, matter-of-factly, “Knicks in five, what y’all talkin’ about?”

There was magic in those words. The rest is history.

13) Deuce McBride

The Finals weren’t McBride’s best showing, but he’s been an important cog for the team for three years now. And lest we forget, he had his playoff moment, too — McBride’s 25-point explosion against Philadelphia in the closeout Game 4, including a tone-setting 12 in the first quarter, was a huge part of ensuring his team was well-rested going into the Eastern Conference Finals.

12) Jose Alvarado

All but out of the rotation in earlier playoff rounds, Alvarado’s massive fourth quarter in the Knicks’ historic Game 4 comeback earned him an indelible place in Knicks history. The scoring, the passing, the cutting, the hustle, the raw emotion — that’s how folk heroes are made.

And while I don’t condone wrestling moves like this one, Alvarado’s takedown of Wemby in the second quarter (and subsequent stepover) sure brought out the Internet’s schadenfreude:

Like the vast majority of NBA players, Alvarado will never be an All-Star or sign a maximum contract. But for a few caught-on-fire moments, he was one of the most important players in the world.

11) Mitchell Robinson

Playing with a broken hand, Robinson wasn’t in top form in these Finals. The Knicks likely could have won this series without him, but would they have ever gotten here in the first place?

New York’s longest-tenured player helped cement his team’s blue-and-orange-collar reputation with his historically great offensive rebounding and toughness. He provides such a different look from Karl-Anthony Towns, but they both bring unrelenting physicality. If nothing else, he bruised and battered Wembanyama, giving no quarter.

And Mitchell did have his highlight on the biggest stage, securing one of the most important offensive rebounds in NBA Finals history in Game 5 as the Spurs desperately sought a comeback:

Who else can turn offensive rebounding into a highlight?

(Well, I suppose there’s one other guy… and we’ll get to him a bit further down.)

10) Landry Shamet

Perhaps no player this side of Karl-Anthony Towns changed their public perception more in these playoffs than Shamet.

Shamet’s 11-for-12 three-point performance in New York’s sweep of Cleveland was utterly remarkable, and his hot start to the Finals (a triplet of threes in each of the first two games) was a major impetus for the Knicks’ running out to a 2-0 lead.

Just as importantly, Shamet established himself as a legitimate perimeter stopper. He was a fixture in Mike Brown’s late-game all-defense lineups. Not bad for a guy signed to a one-year minimum contract, huh?

Shamet was fighting for his NBA life. Now, he’ll likely have a bevy of suitors in free agency, and he seems all but certain to lock up some real money in New York or elsewhere.

9) Tom Thibodeau

I feel for Tom Thibodeau. The Knicks were an abject disaster before Thibodeau took over. All he did was lead them to the playoffs in four of his five years, including an Eastern Conference Finals appearance, while establishing a top-flight culture of professionalism and all-out effort.

His early partnership with Julius Randle (who won Most Improved Player in Thibs’ first year and earned three All-Star nods for the Knicks) was a big part of dragging New York back to respectability. “The magic is in the work,” after all.

Eventually, both Thibodeau's and Randle’s limitations became too apparent to ignore. The Knicks don’t regret moving on from either — there is a reason both were replaced by guys lower on this list. But Thibodeau, in particular, architected the foundation for success. His contributions to the team shouldn’t be forgotten.

8) Mikal Bridges

Bringing in Mikal Bridges shook the basketball world.

Leon Rose, the president of basketball operations, had slowly and painstakingly built a good team from the wreckage of the late 2010s. Smart, patient moves had been his hallmark.

Patient went out the window after a seven-game loss to Indiana in the second round of the 2024 playoffs. The Knicks traded a whopping five first-round picks (and a swap!) to the unloved cross-town “rivals” in Brooklyn for Bridges’ services. Shortly thereafter, out went Randle for Towns, a seismic — and real-dollar costly — move. Taken together, Towns and Bridges were meant to deliver a championship to New York. Now, they have.

I never saw Bridges as the kind of lockdown defender that others did, but he was a reliable three-point shooter who showed some off-the-dribble pop running a bad Nets team. Rose thought he was the perfect complementary piece, and he was willing to go further than anyone else to get him.

It’s not Bridges’ fault that Rose mortgaged the team’s future for him, but his two years in New York have been a roller coaster. He started burning under the magnifying glass like a dry leaf. Plenty of fans and analysts called for his benching multiple times in his tenure.

Bridges’ nadir was a 0-point performance in the Game 3 loss to Atlanta, a humiliating effort, and a subsequent 19-minute allowance in Game 4. But after that, Bridges buckled down and showed out. He redoubled his efforts on defense (most notably on Philly’s Tyrese Maxey) and ripped off a half-dozen monster shooting games over the next two rounds. For most of the Knicks’ playoff run, he looked exactly like what New York always hoped he would look like.

Bridges could have cracked under the pressure. For a minute, it seemed like he might. But when the going got tough, Bridges got going. His rather unhinged, delightfully celebratory post-championship Instagram livestream (none of it is safe for work, but it’s not hard to find the highlights) showed a man standing two inches taller without all that weight on his shoulders.

No, Bridges isn’t worth as much as the Knicks paid in a vacuum. But thankfully, given our dependence on oxygen, we don’t live in a vacuum. Great teams have to pay a premium for any upgrade. Bridges was a man on fire for much of the 2026 playoff run, particularly against Philadelphia and Cleveland. It’s hard to see how the Knicks could’ve won the championship without him.

F*** them picks, indeed.