Knicks Fan Rich Reacts to New York Sweeping the Cavs to Reach First NBA Finals Since 1999

This is the best Knicks team Rich has ever seen. He said it plainly, and he has the credentials to make the claim mean something. He has been a Knicks fan since the 1970s, with one short hiatus, the one that started when James Dolan had Charles Oakley locked up overnight. Rich stopped rooting until Jalen Brunson showed up and pulled him back in.

When the Knicks signed Brunson as a free agent, Rich had no idea what it would spark. Nobody, he pointed out, wanted to come to New York. Nobody thought the Knicks would cook up anything, let alone something generationally great. Now they are in the Finals for the first time since he was a 30-year-old man.

What floored him is that it is not a one-man show. Rich ran through the whole roster, Brunson and Towns and Bridges and Hart and Anunoby, then kept going to the bench, the coach, and the front office. The way every layer of the team is contributing, he said, made this the equal of any Knicks team he can remember.

He put that against a lifetime of fandom. Rich was four when Clyde Frazier and the Knicks won their last title in 1973, too young to remember it clearly. He was a die-hard Bernard King fan and a Patrick Ewing fan, and he was ecstatic when the Knicks landed Ewing in the draft lottery and brought in Pat Riley. He loved what they did against the Houston Rockets in the run when Jordan tapped out, or was told to tap out, and the 1999 team that reached the Finals thrilled him. None of it, he said, compares to this.

Now comes the strange luxury of waiting. The Knicks can sit back and watch the Western Conference finals play out, and Rich is rooting for that series to go as long as possible because he is enjoying it that much.

He also laid out the schedule while his team rests. Suzy is in the chair for the next two days, with Rich trying to win one of his own on Tuesday night, before Ice Cube's son takes over Thursday and Friday while Rich heads to the Big Slick charity tournament in Kansas City.

For now, none of the logistics could dent the disbelief. Generationally great, completely unexpected, and Rich could not wait to see what comes next. Go New York, go.