ONCE THE FINAL 1.2 seconds ebbed off the clock inside Madison Square Garden, allowing the New York Knicks to escape Wednesday's Game 4 of the NBA Finals with one of the most improbable victories in basketball history, the celebratory roar rocketed through the arena.
Through the throngs of fans assembled outside the Garden. Through watch parties scattered across Manhattan's West Village, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island. An entire city and surrounding tri-state area reveling in the largest comeback in Finals history.
And while OG Anunoby's game-winning tip-in didn't get the Knicks all the way there -- it took another three days and roughly 1,500 miles to officially crown the champs in Game 5 -- generations of heartbreak, disappointment and grief seemingly evaporated with every moment of New York's 29-point comeback.
For 53 years, this wasn't New York's place in the basketball universe. It might be The City Game, but it hasn't been this city's game in a long while. Until now.
NEW YORK CITY has delivered a who's who list of memorable champions throughout the past half-century.
The Giants have claimed four Super Bowls during that time, three in dramatic fashion: upsetting the Jim Kelly-led Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV on Scott Norwood's missed field goal at the buzzer; David Tyree and his helmet helping to dethroning the unbeaten New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII; and then four years later, taking down Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots again with less than a minute remaining.