This is the latest in a series of examinations into different games, events and decisions that impacted Knicks history in some way, shape or form. Stories that are not as famous as, say, “The Dunk” or Willis Reed playing Game 7, but still have a place in Knicks history, especially for die-hard fans. Here is an archive of all the stories featured so far.
For a team that has been in the NBA for well over six decades, the New York Knickerbockers sadly have only won two NBA championships. The main reason for that is that they have spent large chunks of their team history as perennial losers (at least they used all of that losing in the 1960s to build up a very good 1970s team and they used their 1980s losing to build up a strong 1990s team. They used all of their 2000s losing to make it to the second round one year in 2013). However, they also have an unenviable place in NBA history as one of only two teams to make it to the NBA Finals three years in a row and lose every time (the other team to do it, the Los Angeles Lakers, actually had a worse go of it, as while they also “only” went three years in a row without a win from 1968-1970, they also played in seven out of nine NBA Finals from 1962 to 1970, losing all seven). That takes some particularly bad luck, and that’s just what happened in Game 1 of the 1952 NBA Finals when Al McGuire made a basket that not enough people actually saw.