{"id":845207,"date":"2026-06-05T03:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/845207\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T03:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:15:23","slug":"knicks-in-nba-finals-has-all-of-new-york-city-abuzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/845207\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks in NBA Finals has all of New York City abuzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Jalen Brunson<\/a> was wowed upon hearing how high the price had climbed on the secondary market for the cheapest ticket in New York for Game 3 of the NBA Finals<\/a> between the Knicks and Spurs.<\/p>\n

What left the Knicks star nearly stumped was determining what he would deem worthy of spending $7,500 to go see.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good question,\u201d Brunson said Thursday. He paused for a few seconds before delivering his answer: \u201cA live Michael Jackson performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thriller, indeed.<\/p>\n

From Bay Ridge to the Bronx and beyond, the Big Apple has gone nuts for the Knicks.<\/p>\n

The team is not only in the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years, New York is riding a 12-0 roll after rallying from a 14-point second-half deficit in a 105-95 win at San Antonio<\/a> in Game 1 on Wednesday night. Game 2 is Friday night in San Antonio before the series shifts to New York on Monday.<\/p>\n

It seems as if the entire city is on board. There were the thousands who filled Madison Square Garden to watch the game on the big screen, only to be matched by the thousands more celebrating outside<\/a> in the shadow of the Empire State Building lit up in the Knicks\u2019 blue and orange.<\/p>\n

The MTA \u2014 the city\u2019s transit authority \u2014 got into the spirit by painting several subway stops around the arena in Knicks colors. And Mayor Zohran Mamdani even signed an executive order temporarily lifting children\u2019s bedtime hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnicks in Four!\u201d chants erupted shortly after midnight, as fans climbed light posts and even on an ambulance outside of MSG.<\/p>\n

Similar scenes were captured at a free watch party in Central Park, and across the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

At a bar in Brooklyn, fans spilled out onto the outside sidewalk to watch the game on the TV inside. At a pizzeria a few doors down, fans gathered around a flat screen TV someone erected in the trunk of a car.<\/p>\n

All of this for a chance to be a part of what could be history 53 years in the making, since Willis Reed and company last brought an NBA title to what was and evidently remains a basketball-mad metropolis. The buzz in the city has overwhelmed much talk of the World Cup<\/a>, which opens in a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I just feel grateful to be here and experience the New York Knicks, doing what we haven\u2019t done in a long time,\u201d Owen Odigie said, celebrating the Game 1 win inside Madison Square Garden. \u201cIt\u2019s special. It\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knicks forward Karl-Anthony Towns could feel the Big Apple energy<\/a> some 1,800 miles away in San Antonio following Game 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel the energy in the city, the grit, the grind, the hard work you\u2019ve got to put in to make it in the city,\u201d said Towns, who hails from New Jersey. \u201cI think we reflect all our fans … when we step on that court with a Knicks jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knicks fans even made their presence felt in San Antonio, beyond the familiar celebrities of Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Ben Stiller and more. The crowd in San Antonio was made up of an estimated 20% Knicks fans, some of whom made their voices heard in yelling, \u201cLet\u2019s go, Knicks,\u201d during the national anthem.<\/p>\n

In reality, given the soaring prices at home, it was reasonably cheaper for Knicks fans to make the trip to San Antonio, even when taking into account flight and lodging costs. Tickets for Game 1 started at around $750 on the secondary market.<\/p>\n

Spurs guard Julian Champagnie \u2014 a native New Yorker \u2014 wasn\u2019t surprised to see the Knicks contingent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of expected that,\u201d Champagnie said. \u201cI\u2019m from New York. I know how New York fans travel and stuff like that, so I kind of expected that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Towns said he couldn\u2019t be more appreciative of the love being shown by Knicks fans. But he said he also prays for the New York police officers tasked with keeping people safe amid the frenzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those men and women out there that are not only protecting everybody … they are huge fans of the Knicks and support the Knicks fans in their ability to show how much they love the Knicks and being as lenient as possible without causing chaos,\u201d Towns said. \u201cSo, shout-out to the men and women of the NYPD.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Wawrow reported from Buffalo, New York, and Reynolds from San Antonio.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Jalen Brunson was wowed upon hearing how high the price had climbed on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":845208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,180,1121,57,24114,83096,24115,1018,1260,6326,3578,401,405,403,3122,5226,5225,5228,5227,345497,7202,62,358,208076,5028,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-845207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-ben-stiller","tag-brooklyn","tag-general-news","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-julian-champagnie","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-michael-jackson","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-owen-odigie","tag-san-antonio","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tracy-morgan","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116695330212153983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}