Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: My fellow New Yorkers-for 53 long years, we have watched and we have waited. We have watched from nosebleeds and through gritted teeth, on televisions in the windows of electronics stores and from projectors balanced on fire escapes.
We have watched alone in our apartments with our heads in our hands, shoulder-to-shoulder at bars where the signal flickers, alongside friends and family who we wish more than anything could be here today, sharing this moment.
For 53 long years, we have watched the Knicks-and we have waited. We waited as the memory of Willis Reed winning the championship on one leg grew fainter and fainter. We waited as Clyde came up clutch again and again...as John Starks dunked on Jordan and Patrick Ewing dunked on the Pacers...as Bernard King scored sixty...as Charles Oakley pulled every rebound within reach...as Spike got in Reggie Miller's face...as Allan Houston put up a shot against Miami that hung in the air for an eternity...as Larry Johnson gave us the four-point play heard around New York...as Starbury traded threes with Kobe and then sold sneakers every kid could afford... as Nate Robinson stuffed Yao Ming ...as the city came alive watching Linsanity... and as Melo lived every Brooklyn kid's dream when he came home and made Madison Square Garden feel like the center of the universe once again.
We waited without ever knowing if this day would come-and we waited because we knew, deep down in our sick, suffering hearts, that it would. New York City-this team has done it. The New York Knicks are NBA Champions. We are here not just because of this team that will go down in New York City legend. I'm talking about guys like Renaldo Balkman, Mardy Collins, Raymond Felton, Marcus Camby, Kristaps Porzingis, JR Smith, Iman Shumpert and the whole Knickstape era.
I'm talking about guys like Toney Douglas, who I watched tie the single-game franchise record for threes from the stands in 2011. I'm talking about Amar'e, who got this whole city fired up when he joined. And I'm talking about Jared Jeffries and Lance Thomas and Langston Galloway-players who gave everything every game, even when a 20-win season was all that was in sight.
This championship belongs to them too, because championships aren't built in one season. It belongs to Emmanuel Quickley. RJ Barrett. Donte DiVincenzo. Julius Randle. And to a coach who helped lay the groundwork-Tom Thibodeau. Thanks to each of these New Yorkers-and too many others to name-New York City has just had two of the most magical months in as long as any of us can remember.
Over these past weeks, as the Knicks kept winning, our city has come together as one.
Neighbors invited neighbors over. Strangers high fived one another in the street. Subway conductors sang their announcements and bus drivers danced behind the wheel. So often, when this city comes together, it is because we are forced to by a moment of tragedy or adversity.
What a gift it is to be brought together by pure, unfiltered joy. For as long as we live, we will remember this feeling of a city together, a city alive, a city overcome by happiness. But let's not pretend that this was inevitable. If you will allow me, I want to travel back in time eight days. Game 4. Nine minutes and 33 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Knicks are down 20. The analytics guys, the sports betting companies, the pundits who watch from far away do what they do. They run the numbers. They calculate the odds. They write the Knicks off.
They give the Spurs a 99.6 percent chance of winning the game. A 99.6 percent chance of tying up the series 2-2, of reclaiming the momentum with the next game in San Antonio. A 99.6 percent chance of silencing the Garden-of another year of watching and waiting. But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team-that they just don't get about this city.
It's in that .4 percent that we go to work. It's in that .4 percent that Jalen Brunson-the same guy that so many said was too small-proves that not only is he good enough; he is the new standard for greatness.
It's in that .4 percent that OG Anunoby watches the ball float from the top of the arc and starts running toward the basket, fingers reaching towards the heavens. It's in that .4 percent that Karl-Anthony Towns finds the strength to mourn his mother and still pull in rebound after rebound, make block after block. It's in that .4 percent that Jose Alvarado shows every kid growing up in public housing that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs.
It's in that .4 percent that Mitch breaks his finger before Game 1 and says go get the tape. It's in that .4 percent that Josh Hart gets rebounds that break teams, that Mikal Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick, that Landry Shamet pulls up from downtown, that every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise, that Mike Brown keeps this team believing.
Most of all, it's in that .4 percent that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible. We find a way. We win. Standing here before what feels like the entire city, there's a Jalen Brunson quote I can't stop thinking about.
"You are allowed to think about the worst possible scenario. But you got to go out there and do something about it." When Jalen Brunson took that pay cut, my friends-that was doing something about it. Time after time, we thought about the worst possible scenario. And time after time, the Knicks went out there and did something about it.
The Knicks did not just win for New York City-they won like New York City.
What is New York if not your back up against the wall, a dream that feels just out of reach, a rent payment you don't know how you will ever make? What is New York if not 99.6 percent of the world stacked against you? And who are New Yorkers if not people who hear those odds and smile? Who look at a .4percent chance of success and ask, "Why're you giving me a headstart?"
This is our city. This is our team. For 53 years, we watched. For 53 years, we waited. Now, we've won.
One last time, New York, say it with me: Knicks in 5.
