The Knicks are finally champions in the NBA again. The Mecca won the 2025 NBA Cup tournament a few nights ago over the San Antonio Spurs, marking them as the third Cup champions since the tournament was launched two seasons ago.
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Despite the win, coach Mike Brown and the rest of the Knicks roster are not losing focus. They’re looking ahead and getting ready to finish the season with the hope of making a deeper playoff run than last year’s Eastern Conference Finals appearance.
And yet the history of the NBA Cup winner is not a good one. The inaugural champs, the Lakers, had an early exit from the playoffs, and the same thing happened to the Bucks a year ago. Are New York in trouble of falling short of expectations after such a tremendous accomplishment? Reggie Miller doesn’t think so, but the NBA legend does offer his old rivals a warning.
The Hall of Famer was a recent guest on the Dan Patrick Show, where he brought up how the Bucks and Lakers saw early playoff exits after their Cup wins. “My only cautionary tale to this is the last two winners of this tournament never got past the second round. Again, this is an early sample size but the Lakers didn’t get past the second round two years ago. Milwaukee didn’t get past the second round a year ago,” stated Miller.
That said, the circumstances of each team’s loss were wildly different. The Purple and Gold ran into the defending champions, the Nuggets, who looked to be on pace to win back-to-back wins and handed the Lakers a 4-1 Gentleman’s Sweep. Meanwhile, the Bucks last season lost Damian Lillard, and fell victim to the black magic that the Indiana Pacers delivered on everyone except the Thunder.
This doesn’t mean it can’t happen to the Knicks, just that they are a more efficient squad at this stage. Miller agrees. “To me the Knicks are a better team than those last two champions, I believe. And the East is not as dominant as the West, so I think the Knicks are sitting pretty good right now,” claimed the 3-point God.
He’s not wrong. The Knicks currently hold the 2-seed in the East and only trail the Detroit Pistons, who have emerged as a red-hot underdog. It won’t be easy, but if the Knicks play as inspired as they did in the Cup tournament, a return to the ECF is not entirely out of the question.
With coach Mike Brown at the helm and stars like Brunson, KAT, OG, and Hart firing on all cylinders, the team looks ready to defend its place among the league’s elite. For now, the city can celebrate a championship, but the real test is still ahead.
