After the New York Knicks’ furious comeback over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night, the last place anyone in the city wanted to be was at home. Taylor Swift and Larry David were among the celebrities who lingered at Madison Square Garden after the final buzzer sounded on the 107-106 victory as Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York washed over the arena.
The former Knick Iman Shumpert, sporting his old No 21 jersey, made a beeline from the arena to Times Square to join the stunned celebration. All over the city, car horns blared, raucous watch parties spilled on to the streets and perfect strangers greeted one another by barking “Go Knicks!”. As they might put it on Broadway: it was just one of those nights.
No city advocates for its own self-importance quite like New York – seat of global finance, capital of media, centre of the universe. On Wednesday, it did not have to. Not after OG Anunoby tipped in a last-gasp shot with 1.2 seconds left to give the Knicks the lead for good. The play, already being called “the other Hand of God” in some corners of the city, did not just seal the largest ever comeback in the NBA playoffs, put New York 3-1 up in the best-of-seven series and move them within reach of their first championship in 53 years. It was a monoculture moment in the attention economy, a genuine fomo (fear of missing out) situation.
Online, a photo of a plane full of passengers all locked into the game – save for one guy streaming Avatar – made the rounds. And a clip from an NBA finals watch party in Irvine, California, showed members of the US men’s national soccer team, interrupting their preparation for the World Cup, erupt when Anunoby’s shot went in. Couples with longstanding wedding plans for this weekend are apparently both anticipating and dreading Saturday’s Game 5, the real social event of the season. Another victory then and the Knicks will have won the series.
An emotionally spent Mariska Hargitay – the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit actor and devoted Knicks supporter, a woman who seemed to have it all – pronounced Wednesday’s game “the greatest night of my life”, looking for all the world as though she had played actual minutes rather than watched from her usual courtside seat. While some city celebrations have spilled over the line at times, and figures such as the rapper Fat Joe have urged fans to keep the passion in check, Knicks fever has proved no less infectious across the country.
It is not just the on-court drama and New York swagger that make this year’s team a vibe. The stars come out for them and so did President Donald Trump and the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, political opposites united by their affection for the home town team. A fair few fans are convinced Game 4 turned during the Wu-Tang Clan’s half-time show, a home game for the Staten Island rap group too. (“Knicks in five!” was how Method Man closed the set.)
“It’s tough for me to be a Dominican, talking about a Puerto Rican like this,” the centre Karl-Anthony Towns joked after the game when asked about the standout play of the reserve guard Jose Alvarado – a line that could have come from a bodega or barbershop, and a reminder of how fully the Knicks reflect their melting-pot city. Anunoby, born in London to Nigerian parents, missed the closing stretch of the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 championship run after an emergency appendectomy (though he still became the first British player to win an NBA title) and is exploiting his shot at redemption.
The Knicks are easy to root for. Jalen Brunson, a 6ft 2in everyman, takes the fight to the 7ft 4in Spurs phenomenon Victor Wembanyama. Brunson was teammates with fellow Knicks Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges on a college dynasty at Villanova, Pennsylvania. Brunson’s father, Rick, is an ex-Knicks reserve turned assistant coach. Mike Brown, whose power struggles with LeBron James twice cost him his job in Cleveland, has long been one of the game’s great motivators and tacticians – a championship-winning assistant under Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr, but not a title-winning head coach … yet.
The enthusiasm around this Knicks championship challenge stands in stark contrast to 1999, when New York faced San Antonio in a lockout-shortened season and the team’s cornerstone Patrick Ewing was out with an injury. The Spurs, led by the hall of famers David Robinson and Tim Duncan, won at a canter and the series drew record-low TV ratings – a harbinger of the post-Michael Jordan era to come.
This Knicks team has delivered blockbuster viewership and become the city’s hottest ticket, with courtside seats fetching the equivalent of a house downpayment. They have reset expectations for a fanbase that has known little but heartbreak apart from titles in 1970 and 73: Jordan’s torment in the 80s and 90s, salary-cap purgatory in the 2000s, the breakup with the franchise talisman Jeremy Lin in the 2010s, and last year’s crushing loss to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals.
If this team goes on to win it all, expect a ticker-tape parade that rivals VJ Day and players turned into brand ambassadors overnight. Expect the paeans to this singular sports moment – in songs, on film – to dwarf the Super Bowl Shuffle Chicago Bears and the curse-breaking Boston Red Sox in US sports lore. (Spike Lee and Nas, in the building for Game 4, are no doubt already taking notes.) Expect Knicks fans to linger in this good time for as long as it lasts, and to be insufferably smug about it all the while, because it is the kind of thing that could only happen in New York.