Knicks focus on title after accomplishing Dolan's first mandate of reaching the NBA Finals

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CLEVELAND (AP) — The New York Knicks have accomplished one of owner James Dolan's mandates by reaching the NBA Finals.

Up next: The opportunity to end a 53-year championship drought.

Dolan said during a rare radio interview in January that the Knicks winning the Eastern Conference for the first time since 1999 was something “we absolutely got to do.”

New York did that on Monday night with a 130-93 rout of the Cleveland Cavaliers to complete a four-game sweep in the conference finals.

The NBA Finals won't begin until June 3 in either Oklahoma City or San Antonio. The Western Conference finals is tied at two games apiece, with Game 5 to be played in Oklahoma City on Tuesday.

The lowest price for an upper-deck seat for Game 3 on June 8 at Madison Square Garden is $3,700 according to a survey of secondary-ticket sites.

Karl-Anthony Towns said the Knicks aren't going to be resting on their laurels while waiting to see who emerges as the Western Conference champion.

“It’s something that New York has been dying for a long time and we’ll enjoy that plane ride. But once we get in those cars and go to our respective homes, it’s going to be back to business,” said Towns, who is averaging 16.9 points and 10.6 rebounds in the postseason. “We’re all going to be in the gym tomorrow probably getting shots up, getting treatment, doing what we need to do to get ready for the next series already. We understand that the job’s not done.”

Towns doesn't want a repeat of Game 1 of this series, when the Knicks fell behind by 22 points before posting the second-largest fourth-quarter rally in NBA playoff history and winning 115-104 in overtime. The 11th-year center hinted the Knicks might scrimmage more during this break.

“Obviously rust will be a thing, just not having shot in an NBA game in a while, but we’ll do a better job this time around of just preparing for that kind of situation to happen,” Towns said. “We've just got to figure out a way to get those kind of game-like reps. I think the coaching staff heard us loud and clear. We want to get back to work to keep the rhythm and also maybe change up the philosophy of how we have those.”

The Knicks won two of three games against the Spurs during the season, including a 124-113 victory in the NBA Cup final on Dec. 16 in Las Vegas. It would also be a rematch of the Knicks' last NBA Finals appearance in 1999, which San Antonio won in five games.

As for Oklahoma City, the defending NBA champs took both meetings during the regular season.

New York goes into the finals on an 11-game winning streak, tied for the third-longest in a postseason run. All but one of the Knicks’ wins during the streak have been by double digits, with an average margin of victory of 23.7 points.

Mike Brown, the 15th coach since 1976 to take a team to the finals in his first year with a team, had faith when he took the job last summer that the Knicks could make a run.

“I truly felt that this team was an NBA Finals team. I felt we legitimately had a chance if we could help them figure it out and the players can stay together during the process, especially when we hit adversity, because we hit it at different times during the season,” Brown said.

Which is why Dolan's proclamation of “winning the finals, we should win” is very possible.

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