Saturday’s Game 5 victory that sealed the first Knicks championship since 1973 was an emotional moment for fans everywhere, many of whom have been waiting their entire lives for a championship.
On Sunday morning, Joe Benigno joined WFAN to share a message to Knicks fans who have been waiting patiently for this moment for many years.
“All the pain, all the disasters. Oh my God, all the ghosts are buried now. The dragon has been slain. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “All of that, all the pain, all the suffering, all the aggravation. It’s gone. It’s over. We are world freaking champions.”
Benigno, a longtime Knicks fan, is referring to the years where the team was at the bottom of the barrel.
Since the arrival of now-captain Jalen Brunson in 2022, however, the team has had a magical turnaround from irrelevancy to playoff contenders the past four seasons.
Beyond the historic finals win that brought the Knicks their third championship in franchise history, the team had an incredibly dominant playoffs. They went 16-3 and won their last nine road games in a row.
Their 13 consecutive wins, stretching across sweeps of the 76ers and Cavaliers and into the finals against the Spurs, is the second longest winning streak in the history of the NBA playoffs.
In the finals, the Knicks overcame double-digit deficits in each of the five games, winning every one outside of the Spurs’ Game 3 victory.
Benigno’s podcast, appropriately titled “Oh the Pain,” has been a succinct description of his experience rooting for his New York sports teams over the years.
Oh the pain no more for the Knicks.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
