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Why the Bulls are the most intriguing opportunity in the NBA | Chicago Sports Tonight
Yahoo Sports Kevin O'Connor joined Tina Nguyen on CST to react to Billy Donovan stepping down as Bulls head coach. Kevin also tells us why the Bulls are the most intriguing opportunity in the NBA, and why the openings are desirable for both front office and head coaching candidates.
The New York Knicks were on the wrong end of NBA jokes for plenty of decades.
Not any longer.
The Knicks have won the 2026 NBA Finals. They defeated the San Antonio Spurs in five games behind a 40-point performance from Jalen Brunson.
What we know:
For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories. The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.
Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — the other two parts of the "Nova Knicks" trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same — combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova — both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.
A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.
Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, who got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn't feel like the road, though — not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.
New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby's tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or playoffs.
By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy. - Associated Press
The backstory:
The Knicks were a long-suffering franchise. Their last NBA title came in 1973 and in the years since, they haven't been able to build a team to get over the top.
The Patrick Ewing and Pat Riley years couldn't beat Michael Jordan and the Bulls or Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets. The Carmelo Anthony years never found a team that would make the NBA Finals.
Now, they finally rest upon the mountain top.
The Villanova-made lineup of Brunson, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart meshed with Karl Anthony-Towns and OG Anunoby. That was enough to beat the Spurs' young but talented lineup.
Victor Wembanyama and Dylan Harper are expected to lead San Antonio back to the promised land eventually.
For now, the promised land will be where the NBA-champion Knicks reside.