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With his brand-new championship ring sparkling on his finger, Jalen Brunson took one last moment to savor the 2025-26 Knicks’ journey to immortality.
And then, the Knicks captain turned his attention to the future.
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“The joy that this city had this summer,” Brunson said Tuesday night, addressing a sellout Madison Square Garden crowd, “we would love to replicate that again.”
Four months after winning their first NBA championship in 53 years, the Knicks punctuated the celebration with a ring and banner-raising ceremony at the Garden ahead of their 2026-27 season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers.
One by one, members of the title-winning roster and coaching staff collected their championship rings at center court from Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who starred on the other two Knicks teams (1970 and 1973) to win it all.
Rowdy fans chanted “OG! OG!” when OG Anunoby collected his hardware, offering extra acknowledgement to the hero of the Knicks’ instant-classic victory in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
They grew even louder when Brunson, the NBA Finals MVP, received his ring.
A banner reading “2025-26 World Champions” rose to the rafters, then hung high above the court as the Knicks’ championship defense officially got underway.
An open space next to the Knicks’ 1969-70 and 1972-73 banners — where, presumably, the new one will ultimately settle in — shouldn’t be vacant too much longer.
“This could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You never know; it’s hard to accomplish something like this,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said before Tuesday’s ceremony.
“You definitely want guys to embrace it and celebrate it with each other — because they went through a lot — with the fans, with the rest of the organization, and with their families. You don’t want to take that moment away from them.”
The rings were produced by the luxury jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills and include nearly 800 diamonds and sapphires. The front features the Knicks logo with “World Champions” circling around it.
Inside, the ring features a detailed recreation of the Garden court and ceiling, which can be accessed with a mechanism that allows the body to twist open.
The championship banner wasn’t the only new addition to the Garden rafters. Before Tuesday’s ceremony, the Knicks also hung a banner commemorating their 2025 NBA Cup championship — something they had declined to do after winning the in-season tournament last season because they had bigger goals in mind.
Tuesday night’s meeting with LeBron James and the Sixers marked the first Knicks game of consequence at the Garden since Game 4 of the Finals. That’s when Anunoby’s now-iconic, go-ahead tip-in capped the biggest come-from-behind victory (29 points) in Finals history.
The Knicks wrapped up their championship two days later with a Game 5 win over the Spurs in San Antonio, completing a historic run in which they went 16-3 and outscored their opponents by 283 points — a playoff record for point differential.
Tickets to attend Tuesday night’s game were the hottest in town, with get-in prices exceeding $1,800 on the secondary market within three hours of tip-off.
Practically every Garden seat was filled by 6:30, shortly before the festivities got underway.
“Early September, I was checking every day to see when [tickets] dropped,” said Andrew Vaughn, 23, of Bensonhurst, who managed to buy four tickets at face value.
“I went to a lot of watch parties. … It was fun to be a part of the moment, and to watch the banner raised, I had to be here.”
Dari Sonera, 56, made it a point to attend Tuesday’s ceremony after missing a chance to go to Game 4 of the Finals because she was visiting her daughter in Las Vegas.
“We didn’t make it [to Game 4] because the flight was so much money,” said Sonera, who grew up nearby in Chelsea. “We just made it our business to be here today, and I’m just so happy to be here. I want to cry; I’m so emotional about it.”
Indeed, Tuesday’s ceremony served as a fervid finale for the Knicks and their fans after four months of celebration.
It started in June with a ticker-tape parade down Lower Manhattan’s storied Canyon of Heroes that upwards of two million people attended.
Brunson hosted “Saturday Night Live,” booked a cameo on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and attended practically every coveted event — from the World Cup to the U.S. Open to a Harry Styles concert — that New York City had to offer.
Karl-Anthony Towns even brought the Larry O’Brien Trophy to his wedding.
“We shared a lot already this summer, but this will be, definitely, a night to remember,” Brunson said ahead of the banner ceremony.
“Just happy we get to experience it.”