Euphoric Knicks fans flood New York for championship ticker-tape parade

NEW YORK, June 18 : Delirious New York Knicks fans flooded the streets of Lower Manhattan on Thursday for a ticker-tape parade celebrating the newly crowned NBA champions, capping a dream season more than five decades after the team last won an NBA championship.

The stretch of Broadway known as the "Canyon of Heroes" was a sea of orange and blue, as throngs of people gathered in the pre-dawn hours — with some camping out overnight — to secure a spot behind police barricades for what Mayor Zohran Mamdani said could be the largest parade in the city's history.

The Knicks' dominant run through the NBA playoffs electrified this sports-mad city that had grown used to falling short year after year. It featured a number of improbable comebacks, culminating with Saturday's victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals over the San Antonio Spurs that ended its 53-year title drought. 

Knicks players, including NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby and Brooklyn-born Jose Alvarado drew cheers as they arrived downtown, along with Knicks stars of yesteryear such as Patrick Ewing and Walt "Clyde" Frazier, who led the team to titles in 1970 and 1973.

Trip Kesler, a Long Island native who lives in Florida, flew to Virginia to meet her brother before they drove north for the parade. The two secured a prime spot along the parade route after waking up at 3 a.m.

"We love our team," the 35-year-old Kesler said, wearing an orange-and-blue Knicks hat that her 64-year-old mother knitted for the occasion. Her dad told her mother every year for decades that the Knicks would win, she added.

"And we did it this year," she said. "I was locked in since Game One of the finals. I knew who was gonna win.”

The parade got underway