- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 1,170,403
- Reaction score
- 59
You must be registered for see images attach
Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Mike Breen has been calling the NBA Finals for ESPN and ABC every June since 2006, a run of 21 consecutive championship series that has outlasted three collective bargaining agreements, two rounds of media rights negotiations, and every generation of rival broadcasters who came and went while the Finals stayed with ESPN and Breen stayed with the Finals.
What it had never included, until Saturday night in San Antonio, was the New York Knicks lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
After New York won its first championship since 1973, Breen spoke with WPIX, his voice audibly hoarse from the broadcast, and said what he has been feeling since he was a kid growing up in Yonkers, rooting for a franchise that last won a title when he was in elementary school.
“I feel so happy for the fans,” Breen said. “I’ve been a fan since I was about seven years old. I’ve been a Knicks broadcaster for more than half my life. So I’ve been around Knicks fans forever. They are just so loyal, and to see them rewarded — because even in the bad years, they never went away. They stuck by, and for them to have a night like this is wonderful.”
The strange thing about Breen’s career is that the two biggest parts of it have never overlapped until now. He has called Knicks games for MSG since 1992, through the Isiah Thomas years, the triangle offense years, Linsanity, the Carmelo Anthony era, and all the other years that produced no championships and a great deal of losing, and he has called 21 consecutive NBA Finals as the national voice of the sport.
The two tracks ran parallel for three decades without ever converging. A year ago, Kevin Harlan called Breen a few days before the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals and offered to give him the Knicks-Pacers series. Harlan had been assigned the series on TNT and wanted Breen to have it instead, telling him he was going to call ESPN and tell them Breen should do the games, that he would go do the Western Conference Finals, and that if ESPN didn’t want him in exchange — if they needed to use Dave Pasch or Mark Jones — he was fine sitting this one out.
Both men ultimately decided it wasn’t the right thing to do to their employers, but a year later, it turned out not to matter, specifically because of Jalen Brunson, who scored 45 points in the closeout game.
“He really deserves to be in the conversation of some of the greatest playoff performers of all time,” Breen said. “What he’s done in the clutch, what he’s done since he arrived here — he’s changed everything. I called him tonight, the gift that keeps on giving. And tonight, Knicks fans get to celebrate that gift.”
The parade is on Thursday, and for once, Breen gets to celebrate it too.
The post Mike Breen finally gets to call a Knicks championship: ‘I feel so happy for the fans’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.
Continue reading...
