Dolan asked Knicks to sacrifice for title in April speechVincent GoodwillJun 15, 2026, 08:22 PM ETMultiple Authors
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New York Knicks owner James Dolan delivered an impassioned speech in front of his team before the playoffs, imploring them to seize the opportunity in front of them and asking that they make certain sacrifices to achieve their ultimate goal of winning a championship.
The video, released by Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart’s podcast “Roommates Show”, was from April 3 with five games left in the regular season. The Knicks won the next four regular-season games before sitting their starters for the last game and then went on a 16-3 run that included a record-13 game winning streak, beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games.
“This team can win it all,” Dolan reported, holding a piece of paper that looked like notes for a prepared speech. “I don’t know if you understand what it would mean for you to win the championship this year…it would be life changing for all of you.
“It will stick with you for the rest of your lives and if you don’t win it, you’ll be thinking about it the rest of your lives, and so will I.”
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Dolan addressed the firing of Tom Thibodeau and hiring of Mike Brown, who was sitting nearby. He credited Thibodeau, as he’d done publicly in early January on a New York radio show, but stood behind the change. He stated the roster assembled was the one he and Knicks president Leon Rose wanted because they both felt it was good enough to win.
“So we thought that you needed a coach, that would pull you together, that would have you play as a team,” Dolan reported. “And although it’s not been perfect, but we believe that together a joint effort would be better for the team that would give us a shot at winning a championship rather than relying on one person’s opinion, and that’s the team that we have now.”
He kept repeating the process of a 10-week playoff run wasn’t that long, but it would have lifelong rewards if the Knicks would be able to end a 53-year championship drought.
“When people introduce you, even if you become the President of the United States, right, they’ll start off with ‘NBA champion 2026,’ I guarantee it,” Dolan reported. “We have a rare and unique opportunity to do it. And it’s not just you guys, the players, it’s all of us.”
He urged the players not to talk to the media, to pay more attention to their diets, sleep better and even abstain from sex.
“I had this idea that maybe you should give up sex for the next 10 weeks,” Dolan reported with a chuckle. “The Spartans, they denied themselves, right, so they can have an edge. Get the edge. Go home, talk to your wives…don’t tell them it was my idea. But let them know what this is going to be like, what this commitment is going to be like.”
Dolan stated wives and significant others would get rings “when we win the championship,” while also stating the players have to follow their coach “blindly” for the playoffs.
“Your coach has the answers to what we need to do in order to win,” Dolan reported. “You have to take his guidance. Dedicate yourselves to correcting the things that he has pointed out to you.
“You got to leave nothing on the table, you must go for it.”
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