Former Knicks Announcer Marv Albert on NY Its Ending 53-Year NBA Title Drought

Marv Albert called the last Knicks championship, so when New York ended its 53-year drought, Rich wanted to know how it hit the man who was at the microphone for the originals.

Albert was happy for them, but honest about the comparison. The 1970 title, the team of Walt Frazier, Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, and Dick Barnett, was the most exciting to him, with Earl Monroe joining for the 1973 group. What made this team different was the surprise of it. Good but not great in the regular season, they reeled off 13 straight wins in the playoffs and came from behind dramatically in a couple of them. No matter the team, Albert said, doing that was just amazing, and the city went crazy, perhaps too crazy at times.

On Jalen Brunson, Albert reached for a New York Times letter to the editor asking how to gauge his greatness, noting Brunson, Villanova class of 2018, has apparently edged out Pope Leo XIV, Villanova class of 1977, as the university's most celebrated alum. As someone who hosted so many of Michael Jordan's performances in the 1990s, Albert called Brunson's run one of the greatest playoff performances of all time.

Rich pointed out the poetry in it. Brunson's 45 points in San Antonio tied Jordan for the most in a road closeout Finals game, and Jordan was the very avatar who blocked the Ewing-era Knicks while Albert was at the mic. This time a Jordan-like performance won it for New York instead of denying them. Albert found the point interesting, marveling that a player listed at 6-foot-2, maybe 6-foot-1, operates the way Brunson does night after night while handling himself so well. The likability of the squad, he added, doesn't always come with winning teams, and Mike Brown, who has been with champions and also-rans, handled every situation extremely well.

The photograph of Patrick Ewing holding the Larry O'Brien trophy next to Brunson moved Rich, and Albert used it to describe how much Ewing has changed. As a player he was tough to talk to and uneasy with the media. Albert got to know the friendlier version when Ewing was an assistant to Doug Collins in Washington, and the image of him so happy for today's Knicks, traveling with the team, shows him in a different light than fans remember.

Rich also relayed the numerology, that Red Holzman's 613 career wins hang in the Garden rafters and the Knicks clinched on June 13. Albert hadn't heard it, but he knew exactly what Holzman would think of this group. He'd love it, Albert said, because they play defense, the very thing Holzman built his Knicks around. In a basketball-mad city where the game is everyone's, Albert said, people are drawn not just to how successful this team was, but to how likably and correctly they played it.