Mike Breen Knicks fandom, explained: Inside NBA broadcaster's New York roots and connection with NBA club

Mike Breen Knicks fandom, explained: Inside NBA broadcaster’s New York roots and connection with NBA club originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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“Bang.”

The legendary catchphrase of Mike Breen has been a staple in recent NBA history on television, and many viewers can automatically hear his voice just by reading that lone word.

The longtime broadcaster has been transparent about his New York Knicks fandom, but he manages not to let that skew his commentary when announcing games his favorite team is on the court for. While it took a period to establish himself as the voice of New York’s basketball team, the job has been a dream come true for Breen.

In 2026, the team had finally completed the 27-year journey to reappear in the NBA Finals, which Breen will be on the mic for. Along with being a Yonkers, N.Y., native, Breen grew up watching the Knicks and even shares the MSG Networks desk with one of his all-time favorite players.

Here’s a look at the broadcaster’s ties to the Knicks and why he supports them.

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Is Mike Breen a Knicks fan?

Breen has been a longtime Knicks fan due to his upbringing in Yonkers. The sports broadcaster has gone 27 years without seeing his team in the NBA Finals since 1999. That streak will finally end with New York’s appearance in the 2026 Finals.

Even though he was young, just eight years old, Breen was able to watch the Knicks win the franchise’s first NBA title in 1970. Three years later, the future team broadcaster watched them win their second.

While Breen is an avid fan of the Knicks, many NBA fans praise him for his ability to remain as neutral as possible when announcing a primetime game when New York is on the court.

“I learned from the best in Marv Albert that you have a job to do,” said Breen, according to the NY Daily News.

However, Breen did open up to NBC in saying there was some emotion behind the Knicks finally returning to the grand stage of the NBA Playoffs.

“It’s not just that I was a Knick fan since I was a kid, but I’ve been broadcasting Knick games for over half my life,” Breen said, according to NBC. “So, you know, when you see a team have a chance to do something they haven’t done forever, there’s certainly emotions there.”

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Inside Mike Breen’s Knicks fandom

In an interview with the NY Daily News, Breen opened up about his two favorite Knicks growing up, one of them being a person he has shared the MSG Networks desk with since 1997.

“My two favorite players for the Knicks were [Walt] ‘Clyde’ [Frazier] and Dave DeBusschere,” Breen said, according to the NY Daily News. “For me, I thought they were the greatest players on Earth. So, that started my love of basketball.”

Breen was old enough to remember watching both of the team’s only championship wins thus far, in 1970 and 1973. Outside of the team’s appearance in the 1999 Finals, his fandom experience has been rather bleak. Now, the Knicks have been on a rewarding path for fans who have remained loyal, one of them being Breen.

“They had stretches of uneven play, stretches where you see they were still a work in progress,” Breen said. “That, to me, is [what is] most impressive — even in the ups and downs, the ebb and flow of a regular season, they stuck together, they kept working, and it just all clicked in the playoffs to the point where this is one of the great playoff runs in NBA history.”

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Where is Mike Breen from?

Mike Breen grew up in Yonkers, N.Y. He was born there on May 22, 1961, and was the fourth of five boys under the Breen family roof, according to the NY Post.

The sports broadcaster attended Fordham University from 1979 to 1983. Breen began doing play-by-play for the Marist College Red Foxes in Poughkeepsie in 1985. After that, he segued into a Knicks radio announcer role for the WFAN radio station in 1991.

In 1997, Breen was promoted to do Knicks television play-by-play for MSG Networks after Marv Albert was fired. After a return to radio due to Albert’s brief return to television broadcasting, Breen has remained in that lead MSG broadcasting role in 2004, along with leading ESPN/ABC’s NBA broadcasts since 2006.

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