{"id":763105,"date":"2026-06-17T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763105\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T06:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:00:33","slug":"knicks-nba-title-finally-allowed-patrick-ewing-to-exhale-kat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763105\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks’ NBA title finally allowed Patrick Ewing to exhale: KAT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karl-Anthony Towns shared his first NBA title with Knicks legend Patrick Ewing.<\/p>\n

The two met on the Frost Bank Center court in San Antonio after New York won Game 5 because Towns said he knew how much the Knicks\u2019 first championship in 53 years<\/a> meant to Ewing, a legend of the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so amazing to see how this win healed so many people in New York, fan-wise and even to the alumni, and Patrick,\u201d Towns said on \u201cThe Howard Stern Show\u201d on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I hugged Patrick, it was like he finally was able to exhale and see a trophy in a Knicks jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick Ewing and Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks celebrate after Game 5 of the NBA Finals. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ewing spent 15 seasons with the Knicks and made the playoffs 13 times and the Finals twice.<\/p>\n

He was one win away from beating the Rockets in 1994, but the Knicks lost Games 6 and 7. In 1999, he was similarly close but tore his Achilles tendon in the Eastern Conference finals and missed the championship series, which the Spurs eventually won.<\/p>\n

Ewing, a Hall of Famer, was named a Knicks basketball ambassador<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo finally be able to see that Larry O\u2019Brien in [Ewing\u2019s] hands and not in Michael Jordan\u2019s and all these other people\u2019s hands, I mean, there was just so much healing that I was stunned,\u201d Towns added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how impactful it really is, and I still honestly don\u2019t think I understand the true magnitude of what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick Ewing and Karl-Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks celebrate after winning the NBA Finals. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Patrick Ewing celebrates after the Knicks became the 2026 NBA Finals champions. Jason Szenes for NY Post<\/p>\n

Towns was born in Edison, New Jersey, about 30 miles from New York City, and grew up a Knicks fan due to Jeremy Lin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He said it meant a lot to him to see the impact the win had on the fans and to be a part of a memory the kids in New York will carry with them. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou never realize a little kid watched the Knicks play, win a championship with his father, and now he\u2019s the one with his son celebrating the same moment that him and his father,\u201d Towns said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karl-Anthony Towns shared his first NBA title with Knicks legend Patrick Ewing. The two met on the Frost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,22397,563,6,1220,11,191,4698,474,66],"class_list":["post-763105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-jeremy-lin","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-patrick-ewing","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116763926444732006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}