NEW YORK MAYOR Zohran Mamdani hailed the success of the city’s basketball team as locals held jubilant celebrations after claiming the NBA title.
The city erupted in jubilant scenes Saturday when the Knicks broke a 53-year drought to defeat the San Antonio Spurs to win the final.
Mamdani went on to bring up the team’s historic 29-point comeback in Game 4, where the odds gave them just a 0.4% chance of winning the game at that point.
“There is one thing that the pundits just don’t get about this team, what they don’t get about this city: it is in that 0.4% that we go to work,” said Mamdani, wearing a blue and orange Knicks jersey over a shirt and tie with a suit jacket.
“The Knicks did not just win for New York City, they won like New York City,” Mamdani added.
“What is New York without your back against the wall? A dream that feels just out of reach? A rent payment you don’t know how you’ll ever make? What is New York if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you? And who are New Yorkers who hear those odds, and smile?”
Mamdani awarded players the symbolic key to the city at City Hall, where Grammy winner Alicia Keys sang Empire State of Mind – the smash hit she recorded with Jay-Z in 2009.
Mamdani told the crowd of thousands that when New York does come together, it was because of a “moment of tragedy or adversity” that struck the city.
“What a gift it is to be brought together by pure, unfiltered joy.”
here is Mamdani's entire speech at the Knicks parade, which is easily the best speech I've ever heard at an event of this sort pic.twitter.com/FiTxy81Yq3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 18, 2026
The mayor added: “For as long as we live, we will remember this feeling of a city together, a city alive, a city overcome by happiness.”
Fans turned the city into a sea of blue and orange to mark their basketball team’s NBA Finals victory.
Mamdani’s speech has drawn plaudits, except among the New York Post, the Rupert Murdoch-backed newspaper, which bemoaned the mayor for soaking up the “spotlight with droning, nearly 10-minute speech” at the ceremony.
Thursday’s parade drew a security detail of 10,000 New York police officers – the force’s largest ever deployment for a planned event.
— Dylan Burd (@Dylan_Burd) June 18, 2026
In one case, dozens of fans scaled a city dump truck, deployed as a security measure, to catch a glimpse of the passing players and trophy.
Chants of “Let’s go Knicks” rippled through the dense crowd, made up of some who paid hundreds of dollars for line sitters to wait overnight and save them a space to watch the procession.
New York, already swarming with football supporters for the World Cup, faced traffic chaos with street closures enforced across Manhattan during the parade.