The Knicks’ unlikely run to the NBA Finals comes with one ominous bit of betting history.
New York entered the playoffs with +2200 odds to win the NBA title, making it just the seventh team since the 1976 NBA-ABA merger to reach the Finals after starting the postseason at +2000 or longer, according to Action Network’s Evan Abrams.
The bad news for Knicks fans: The previous six teams all lost once they got there.
Now the Knicks are trying to become the first team in that group to turn a surprise Finals berth into a championship.
The 1976 Suns, 1981 Rockets, 1999 Knicks, 2020 Heat, 2023 Heat and 2025 Pacers all beat long odds to reach the championship round, only to fall short of finishing the job.
A year ago, Indiana came the closest of that group to pulling it off, falling to the Thunder in Game 7 after star Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles.
The last time these two teams met in the NBA Finals, the Patrick Ewing-less Knicks were massive +600 underdogs against the Spurs, who throttled their Eastern Conference opponents in five games.
Coming into this postseason, the Spurs were tied with the Celtics for the second-best odds to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy at +550, behind only the Thunder (+115), whom they took down in the Western Conference Finals.
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San Antonio is now heavily favored over the Knicks in the Finals, but it was a long road getting there.
Ironically, the Spurs were +6600 long shots to win the title before the season, giving them a chance to become the biggest preseason championship long shot ever to win it all, surpassing the 2015 Golden State Warriors, who were +2800.