Jim Dolan's speech to Knicks before playoffs: 'I believe this team can go all the way'

Weeks before the champagne poured, in the first days of April, with the Knicks still making their way through the regular season and before beginning the playoff run that culminated in the first championship in 53 years, James Dolan sat down in front of the team and spoke about what was in front of them.

The roles were still being settled, there were questions inside and outside the organization, and the Madison Square Garden chairman issued a challenge to the team during an April 3 speech he said he had never given in his more than two-decade run in charge of the organization.

“I decided to come talk to you because I didn't want to miss the opportunity,” Dolan said in the speech that was released by The Roommates Show podcast. “I believe that this team can go all the way, and in my 30 years of doing this, I've never felt closer to achieving that goal than right now. This team can win it all, and when I look back at this after this summer and look back at this time, I wanted to say to myself that I didn't hold anything back.”

Dolan spoke for 15 minutes, mainly about what it would mean to win the championship and the sacrifice it would take to get there — 10 weeks of sacrifice. He spoke of upping their level of practice, of talking through issues with teammates, of fitness and diet, and even joked about a spartan lifestyle, no sex for 10 weeks, and he promised if the Knicks won the title, he’d also get championship rings for the spouses and significant others.

Mike Brown spoke at the start of the NBA Finals about working with Dolan and said, “He challenges Leon (Rose). He challenges me. He challenges the players in the right way. You want that from your boss. You want to be challenged, you want to be pushed. … My short time around him, he's been fantastic in that area. In the same breath, too, he's adamant if you bring to him what you need, then there's backing with it, he's adamant about trying to give you the best things possible to go get the job done.”

It wasn’t just the players who were on the line. He pointed to the front office and ownership decisions, praising Tom Thibodeau, the coach who was fired after last season’s team fell short of reaching the NBA Finals, and acknowledging that the move and the trades that were made would either make them look like geniuses or be second-guessed.

“You got to try like you've never tried before,” he said. “It's only 10 weeks, guys. You got to go for it every day for the next 10 weeks. You got to go for it. … You got to leave nothing on the table. You must go full. That’s basically it. I believe in you guys. I believe that this whole — this is not just a player thing. This is an entire organization thing. We've been working at this for years to get ourselves to this point, and now, 10 weeks, can you do? Can you focus for 10 weeks? If you do that at the end of 10 weeks, we're walking out of here with rings and we're walking out of here with a moniker on ourselves that will never ever (expletive) go away. Me too. Do it. Commit to it. Go for it. Let's go.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.