ESPN’s Mike Breen on the Impact of Knicks’ Title on Team’s Past Greats

Mike Breen has called a lot of games. He told Rich he had never seen anything like the scenes that followed the Knicks' championship.

Rich teed it up by reminding Breen that he's a New Yorker and a Fordham guy, so those images had to hit differently. Breen went somewhere deeper than celebration. He talked about why fans care this much in the first place.

"The emotion of caring is an amazing thing," Breen said. He pointed to an essay by the writer Roger Angell on what it means to be a fan, the idea of caring so much about something that "you become this irrational person in so many ways," pouring your time, money and emotion into a team, and hurting badly when they lose.

"But then, when an event happens for Knicks fans, like happened the other night, the joy is just, it's overwhelming," he said. He saw it in the arena and in the videos afterward. "It's just a beautiful thing."

His best evidence came from home. His son Matt, who is 29, watched the game with friends at an apartment in the city, then went out afterward. In about a three-block walk, Matt told him, "Dad, I hugged like 80 strangers."

"When does that ever happen in New York?" Breen asked.

Rich asked whether he had connected with Clyde. Breen saw him after the game and called their friendship "one of the blessings of my life." What struck Breen was how Clyde talks about this group.

"I've never heard him talk about any other Knicks team with the kind of reverence he talks about this team," Breen said. Clyde doesn't compare anyone to the '70 and '73 teams, but he says this one reminds him of them.

Then came the comparison that carries real weight in Knicks history. Clyde also doesn't compare anyone to Willis Reed, who Breen said was Clyde's role model and idol until the day Reed passed away. Yet Clyde says Jalen Brunson reminds him of Reed as that "silent but tough leader."

Breen closed with Patrick Ewing, who was so emotional after the game. Breen credited the Knicks for bringing Ewing back and making him a real part of the team, and said Ewing's reaction was simple: "I'm finally getting my ring."

"How do you not get emotional," Breen said, "that he says something like that?"