Madison Square Garden celebrated its first championship in over five decades on Tuesday.

The New York Knicks, wearing white uniforms with gold trim, received their NBA championship rings from Hall of Famer Walt Frazier, then watched a blue banner reading "2025-26 World Champions" rise to the rafters. Before that, they also hung a banner for the NBA Cup they won in December.

It was the Knicks' first home game outside preseason exhibitions since Game 4 of the NBA Finals, and the celebration came before a season-opening loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The surprise of the night was the NBA Cup banner itself. The Knicks broke with tradition in December by becoming the first team to win the in-season tournament and not commemorate it with a banner, saying at the time they were looking ahead to bigger things.

The banner went up sometime after the Sixers held their morning shootaround. The New York Post reports the banner was stealthily hung hours before ring night and tucked in a corner, after James Dolan had originally balked at recognizing the tournament.

Dolan had made headlines by becoming the first owner to decline raising an NBA Cup banner, telling WFAN in January, per the New York Post, "We want an NBA championship, we don't want some consolation prize."

That stance drew attention because commissioner Adam Silver had promoted the tournament's significance.

The Knicks then became the first team to win both the NBA Cup and the NBA championship, beating the Spurs in the Cup final and again in the Finals, which made hanging both banners in the same season an unusual full-circle moment.

Outside preseason exhibitions, the Knicks had not played at the Garden since OG Anunoby's tip-in with 1.2 seconds remaining capped a record-setting comeback from a 29-point deficit in Game 4 of the Finals.

The highlight of that play in the ring-night montage set off some of the loudest roars of the evening.

Jalen Brunson opened his remarks by referencing that game and thanking fans for not leaving early, while "Knicks in 5!" chants — echoing the Finals clincher over San Antonio — resumed around the building.

The Knicks' first title since 1973 has reshaped the conversation around their point guard. The New York Post reports that Silver, asked about the face of the league going forward, named Brunson first, citing his path from second-round pick to champion.

Brunson told fans the team was turning the page: "The joy that this city had this summer, we would love to replicate that again." Coach Mike Brown called the Cup banner "a recognition of what our journey was like last year," honoring both the players and the fans.

The rings and banners are now in place, but the season itself opened with a loss to Philadelphia, and the defending champions must manage the transition from a summer-long celebration to a title defense.

The two banners are the first hung at Madison Square Garden by the Knicks since they won the Atlantic Division title in 2012-13, per the Associated Press.

Brunson's stated goal of replicating the city's joy frames the immediate stakes: staying healthy and extending a championship era rather than living on last season's memory.