Knicks fall on banner night at MSG: 'There's still a lot left for us to prove'

Members of the Knicks teams that captured the NBA championships in 1970 and 1973 were assembled again and sat in a line at center court. Before the Knicks could even be introduced to accept their championship rings and raise the banner marking the 2025-26 NBA title, the sellout crowd at the Garden shook the building with chants of “Knicks in 5.” And then the champions watched it rise to the rafters of the World’s Most Famous Arena.

These are just a few images of an evening 53 years in the making – “Championship Night” – that unfolded Tuesday night before the Knicks opened their title defense against Philadelphia. But they could not put a perfect punctuation mark on a great night and fell to a 76’ers team that now features LeBron James and Jaylen Brown in the lineup with Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embid 106-100 before a sellout crowd of 19,812 at the Garden.

Philadelphia scored the final 11 points of the third quarter for an 83-76 lead, got the margin to nine points early in the fourth quarter and the Knicks never got closer than 96-95 on a Karl-Anthony Towns three-pointer with 4:37 to play. The Knicks shot just 37% for the game.

For more on Tuesday night's home opener, check out Roger Rubin's story.

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.