NEARLY THREE DECADES later, Patrick Ewing's pain is fresh as he reminisces about the last time the New York Knicks were in the NBA Finals.
In 1999, the upstart Knicks became the first 8-seed ever to reach the Finals, but they were no match for the San Antonio Spurs. Tim Duncan was just starting his legendary Spurs run of five titles in 16 seasons, and center David Robinson was still at an All-Star level. A helpless Ewing could only watch from the sidelines with a torn Achilles suffered in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals. Without their franchise big man, the undersized Knicks were dismissed in five games.
Ewing's wound of losing his second and last Finals appearance has yet to heal.
"That definitely hurt," Ewing told ESPN. "It hurt me more than the [1994 Finals] loss to [the Houston Rockets] -- the fact that I was not able to play."
Twenty-seven years later, the Knicks have returned to the Finals and must scale yet another generational Spurs big man in Victor Wembanyama. As in 1999, Ewing will be cheering on the Knicks to end their title drought from his courtside seat. The Hall of Famer is one of many Knicks alumni, including Larry Johnson, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell and John Starks, who have regularly attended Knicks games during their incredible postseason run.
That Knicks team produced some of the franchise's most unforgettable moments, including Houston's running jumper that sank their hated rival Miami Heat in the first round and Johnson's legendary four-point play that ultimately propelled New York over nemesis Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals. Some, like Johnson, feel like they are reliving 1999 all over again. They see much of what embodied that Jeff Van Gundy-led team in this current group.
"I've just been waiting because we were bad for a long time," Johnson told ESPN. "Instead of coming to the Knicks, Kevin Durant went to Brooklyn. And of course, LeBron [James] did his little thing [opting for Miami in 2010]. It was a while to get stars to come here. Amar'e [Stoudemire came to the Knicks], and then we got [Carmelo Anthony]. But I don't think we were ever [close] to winning the chip. I'm thinking the time is now, even if they lose this Finals, they're still on the verge of winning the chip.
"It's been fun watching these guys and most of us, especially that '99 season, remember little Jalen [Brunson] running around."
Like that New York squad that captivated the city, these Knicks defied doubters, needed players to sacrifice and rally around a coach under fire to jell at the exact right time to make their own postseason history, winning 11 straight and outscoring opponents by 19.4 points per game, the highest entering the Finals in NBA history. They'll look to take a 2-0 lead over the Spurs in this best-of-seven series Friday in San Antonio (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
The former Knicks who've been showing up at Madison Square Garden throughout the playoffs are rooting for the franchise's star point guard, who used to roam the team's locker room as a toddler when his father, Rick, was on the 1999 team. Many of the legends believe the Knicks have the "selfless" star the franchise has been searching for so long in Brunson and the type of chemistry and resilience needed to finish what the Knicks in '90s started -- deliver their first title since 1973.
"You see the way the city is reacting right now," Ewing said of a potential Knicks championship. "They might burn the city down."
MICHAEL JORDAN AND the Chicago Bulls ruled the 1990s with six championships in eight seasons. Four of those came after eliminating Ewing and the Knicks from the postseason.
The Knicks beat the Bulls and made the 1994 Finals the season after Jordan retired -- for the first time -- but lost to Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets in seven games.
After the Bulls dynasty broke up following the 1997-98 season, the Knicks made seismic changes heading into the lockout-shortened 1999 season, trading longtime, popular veterans Starks and Charles Oakley for Sprewell and Marcus Camby, respectively. Ewing had carried the Knicks for much of his 15 seasons with the franchise, and now he had young scorers around him in Sprewell and Houston -- with Jordan in his second retirement.
Like those Knicks, this New York team comprises important players acquired in blockbuster trades -- Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. All three have had to sacrifice and adapt after having bigger roles on their previous teams.
The 1999 Knicks had to overcome turmoil for much of their 50-game regular season. Sprewell and Camby struggled to emerge out of the shadows of Starks and Oakley, two players who embodied the Knicks' hard hat culture. Van Gundy, whose job was on the line, and general manager Ernie Grunfeld clashed in a power struggle that resulted in Dave Checketts, Madison Square Garden president, stepping in and dismissing Grunfeld with eight games left in the regular season.
The Knicks won six of their last eight to squeeze into the postseason as the 8-seed at 27-23 -- which was just six games worse than the top-seeded Heat.
"The entire season was one of, I would say, dysfunction," Knicks point guard Charlie Ward, who now is Florida A&M's coach, told ESPN.
Those Knicks, however, began a magical run by stunning top-seeded Miami in the first round with Houston's game-winning runner famously bouncing off the front rim, off the glass and in with eight-tenths of a second remaining in a winner-take-all Game 5. They swept the Hawks and then, despite Ewing suffering his Achilles injury in Game 2, stunned the Pacers in the East finals with help from Johnson's four-point play in Game 3.
Like in these Finals against Wembanyama, the Knicks had to figure out how to contain not only the big man of the future but perhaps the best player in the game for years to come in Duncan.
With Ewing sidelined and the 6-foot-7 Johnson hobbled by a knee injury, the Knicks couldn't stop Duncan from starting a Spurs dynasty. The 22-year-old big man averaged 27.4 points, 14 rebounds and 2.2 blocks against the Knicks in the Finals in just his second season.
"There were just no mistakes," Johnson, now an ambassador for the Knicks, said of Duncan. "It was left hand, right hand, jump hooks, one-dribble pull-up. He was just one of the most fundamentally sound basketball players I ever played against."
Ward remembers Van Gundy throwing everything he could come up with at the Spurs big man.
"We just didn't have enough," Ward said of what he remembered the most after losing 4-1 in the Finals. "Tim Duncan was a menace. It was like his coming-out party."
Brunson's Knicks are no stranger to the hot seat. Last season, despite reaching the conference finals for the first time since 2000, the Knicks fired coach Tom Thibodeau, replacing him with Mike Brown, who had coached the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in 2007. Brown also had to deal with rough patches this season, including trailing the Hawks 2-1 in the first round of the playoffs.
Johnson still immediately credits Thibodeau, who was a longtime top assistant under Van Gundy, with spending countless hours working on his 3-point shooting to help him hit one of the biggest shots in franchise history. He also believes Thibodeau deserves credit for building the winning foundation that has helped the current Knicks team get this far.
"I was a little skeptical because I'm a big time Thibodeau fan," Johnson said. "I don't know if anybody can deny what they're doing now.
"[But] if they win this championship, it's somewhat similar to that Golden State era. [Former Warriors head coach] Mark Jackson built that foundation and then Steve Kerr took it over."
Kerr won his titles in Golden State with Stephen Curry, whom the Knicks missed out on drafting in 2009 by one spot. Now they have a 6-2 point guard who has led them to the Finals. New York City has always prided itself on being the mecca of point guards. Ewing sees Brunson as the ideal Knicks point guard, one who might be able to deliver what no one has done for 53 years.
"He has thick skin," said Ewing, now basketball ambassador for the Knicks. "To be a star in New York, you can't let the pressure bother you. You got to block out the noise.
"Everything comes in circles," he said. "We waited our turn. We tried to do different things to get our guys back to this point [by chasing stars in the past].
"But I thought when they brought Jalen onto the team, he is New York basketball through the way that he carries himself, the way that he performs."
IF IT WASN'T Jordan standing in the Knicks' way of the Larry O'Brien Trophy, it was a Hall of Fame-bound big man with once-in-a-lifetime skills.
Olajuwon and his Dream Shake prevented the Knicks in 1994 from joining the Rangers, who ended a 54-year Stanley Cup drought that same summer. And then Duncan conquered New York City in 1999.
"In '94, we wanted it to be a dual celebration with the Rangers," Ewing said. "Unfortunately, we just didn't get it done.
"The city was on fire [in 1999]. We just weren't able to fulfill our dreams, to win a championship and join Clyde [Frazier] and those guys [who won the last Knicks title in 1973]."
The Knicks' best hope against these Spurs is a kid who used to hold some of the sneakers from the Knicks on that 1999 squad and was lovingly teased often by Johnson. Brunson, whose father played 26 games between the regular season and playoffs for those Knicks, has put together one of the best runs in Knicks' postseason history and has the team closer to a title than it has been in a generation.
He also gives Ewing, Johnson and many on that last New York team to reach the Finals a direct tie to this Knicks squad.
"I look at pictures of [Jalen] and my daughters when he was little, them carrying him around on their backs," Ewing said of his daughters, Randi and Corey. "And now he's carrying the team.
"The rest of the guys are doing their part, carrying the whole city on their backs."
Brunson is averaging 26.9 points per game in the 2026 playoffs, his fourth consecutive postseason averaging at least that many. His 1,633 postseason points since joining the Knicks are already the third most in franchise history, behind Ewing and Frazier.
Watching Brunson develop and lead the Knicks to the doorstep of another title is a source of pride for many members of the 1999 team. They can still remember the younger Brunson following his dad around.
"Larry used to talk about Jalen's head being bigger than his body and used to mess with Rick about that all the time," Ward said of Johnson, who was tight with Rick Brunson, now an assistant coach on the Knicks staff. "Jalen was small back then."
Jalen Brunson doesn't remember much from that 1999 team, but he says being around that team and now leading the Knicks to the Finals is "pretty surreal." He talks about this year's Knicks having "been doubted a lot." The 1999 Knicks felt the same when they made history reaching the Finals.
Brunson said he has tried learning from those who came before him when asked about the stories he has heard from his father and Knicks such as Ewing and Houston about that 1999 run.
"The way I've gone about being a leader is taking bits and pieces of different things that I've learned from leaders and trying to make it my own," Brunson said at Finals media day Tuesday. "You hear stories of people's experience but the biggest situations you get is actually going through things and as a leader, making sure that we're on the same page."
Brunson is now the biggest star playing off Broadway at the Garden, doing something that other stars such as Anthony and Stoudemire could not -- getting the Knicks back to the Finals.
"Some people are bred for it, and he just came out that way," Herb Williams, the popular veteran locker room presence on the 1994 and 1999 Finals teams, said of Brunson shining in the New York spotlight. "I don't know, maybe it's from being around it [as a kid], but he's not scared of the moment. One thing about New York, it's going to be 100 million media people with 100 million different directions. And when things are going bad, they're going to try to pull you apart. When things are going good, they still going to try to pull you apart. And when you win, they all are going to love you.
"That's just New York."
If Brunson can end New York's title drought, would that put the point guard in the discussion for the greatest Knick of all time? Ewing, the franchise's all-time leading scorer, leaves that up to the pundits to debate.
He certainly will be rooting for Brunson to win it all, something that might finally help heal No. 33's old wounds of losing in the Finals.
"This is a kid that I've known since he was 2," Ewing said. "I played with his dad. I want him and the team to be as successful as they can be. I'm not worrying about who is the greatest Knick of all time. I'm just enjoying the ride. Now I can sit back and enjoy the show, whereas back then I was focused on trying to get the job done.
"Hopefully, these guys will be able to do it."
