As Mike Breen prepares to call his 21st NBA Finals on ABC, he’s also preparing to do something he’s never done before.
Breen has been the Knicks’ play-by-play voice on MSG Networks since 1998 — but this is the first time during that stretch that he’ll announce the Knicks in the Finals.
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“It’s kind of a bucket list thing,” Breen said. “Twenty-one Finals is impossible to comprehend for me, and I always thought it’d be pretty cool to have the Knicks in one. And to see the growth of the team the last couple of years and to see what this team has done for the fan base of New York — I’ve lived in New York my whole life. It’s really energized the city like nothing I’ve ever seen, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Breen will be on the call with analysts Richard Jefferson and Tim Legler when the Knicks end their 27-year Finals drought and tip off Game 1 against the Spurs on Wednesday, June 3.
Breen announced the Knicks’ 1994 Finals series loss to the Rockets on the radio for New York’s WFAN. In 1999, when the Knicks made it back to the Finals, Marv Albert was on the call instead of Breen.
Now, Breen is getting a second chance. This year’s Knicks-Spurs championship series is a rematch of the 1999 Finals, when the Knicks became the first 8-seed to make the Finals at the conclusion of the lockout-shortened NBA season. But with Patrick Ewing out injured and Larry Johnson banged up, New York couldn’t finish the job and the Spurs won the first of coach Gregg Popovich’s five NBA titles.
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“That’s when you started to realize Tim Duncan was going to be one of the greatest players of all time,” Breen recalled. “It was actually a great year for both teams, even though the Knicks fell short. But San Antonio, you started thinking, OK, this could be a team that’s going to win a lot of titles in a row.”
More: The Knicks are back in the Finals and the whole city is coming along
Breen grew up in Yonkers, New York, just north of the Bronx. He was 9 when the Knicks won the franchise’s first NBA championship in 1970, a sports-crazed kid who never imagined he’d one day be announcing games for his hometown team. He uniquely understands how generations of Knicks fans, some of whom haven’t witnessed the team win a title in their lifetime, ache for another championship.
When the cameras and the mics turn on, however, expect Breen to be the consummate professional. Breen has announced plenty of Knicks playoff games on national TV over the years, including this year’s Eastern Conference finals series against the Cavaliers.
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“Watching him call it straight down the middle and watching him celebrate both teams, that’s the one thing that I gained so much respect for,” Jefferson said. “While people are always kind of looking at him and his love for the Knicks, I think his love for basketball and telling stories, I think that is so great.”
Breen is nonetheless prepared for what he described as an annual Finals tradition, fans accusing him of bias.
“The funny thing is, every year, even when the Knicks are not in it, if it’s Celtics-Lakers, Laker fans think that we’re rooting for the Celtics and the Celtic fans think we’re rooting for the Lakers,” Breen said. “The other thing, too, is that I just love basketball so much. So when De’Aaron Fox or Wemby or Stephon Castle make a spectacular play, I’m going to go crazy, because I love watching great basketball.”
The Knicks haven’t won an NBA championship since 1973, but Breen isn’t allowing himself to consider yet how he will feel if Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and company are victorious. The Hall of Fame broadcaster is in work mode, preparing to summarize immense heartbreak for one team and triumph for another, whatever the outcome.
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“The number one thing for me is I’ve got a job to do,” Breen said. “I do know what it would mean to the city and to the fans of the city. It might be one of the greatest sports moments in the history of New York sports if they win because of what the fan base has gone through and how loyal they’ve been to the team. As for my emotions, it’s hard to predict that.”
As for how Knicks fans would react to another title, Breen predicted, “I think it’s going to be one of the all-time reactions in terms of people being emotional. There’ll be a lot of crying.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Breen on the Knicks, NBA Finals and growing up in New York
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