{"id":854317,"date":"2026-06-09T04:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/854317\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T04:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T04:35:14","slug":"knicks-fever-sweeps-new-york-for-game-3-of-the-nba-finals-against-the-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/854317\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks fever sweeps New York for Game 3 of the NBA Finals against the Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Inside Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee wore a Knicks jersey with Pope Leo\u2019s name on the back. On the concourse and the street, fans in blue and orange cheered and chanted. Watch parties sprung up all over the city, including one at a Brooklyn funeral home.<\/p>\n

Knicks fever<\/a> reached a new peak Monday night, with New York hosting Game 3 of the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. Shouts of \u201cLet\u2019s go Knicks!\u201d and \u201cKnicks in four!\u201d were heard throughout midtown Manhattan, with spirits up even as tight security measures for the presence of President Donald Trump caused hours-long lines to get in. <\/p>\n

The excitement extended until just about the final buzzer, when the Spurs finished off a 115-111 victory<\/a> that ended New York\u2019s 13-game postseason winning streak. San Antonio trimmed its series deficit to 2-1 and avoided getting pushed to the brink of elimination. <\/p>\n

With the Knicks in the finals for the first time since 1999 and leading the best-of-seven series 2-0,<\/a> their first home game this round was a hot ticket. The get-in price exceeded the average cost of rent in the biggest U.S. city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my son here, so taking him to the finals, you can\u2019t really put a price on the experience,\u201d said Greg Weldon, who flew in from Florida to attend a finals game as he did when New York won it all in 1970 and \u201973. \u201cIt\u2019s like that commercial: The tickets, ridiculous; the hassle getting in, ridiculous \u2014 the experience, priceless.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cheapest upper-deck seats available were going for over $5,000 on resale platforms like StubHub, SeatGeek and VividSeats. The experience of being courtside carried a $75,000 price tag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care who you are, that\u2019s a lot of money for a ticket,\u201d said guard Jose Alvarado, a New York native who was planning a viewing party in Brooklyn and pointed out his Queens high school also is hosting one. \u201cPeople that could afford it, we\u2019re grateful with them coming out, and it just shows you our team is really special and we\u2019re doing something here that hasn\u2019t been done in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hoopla for Game 3 included the appearance by Trump, booed by fans<\/a> when he was shown on arena video screens, as well as Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Yankees Hall of Famer Derek Jeter, Giants two-time Super Bowl-wining quarterback Eli Manning, actor Daniel Radcliff and more.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s presence led to the cancellation of a planned watch party<\/a> outside the arena. There was instead one a few blocks away in Bryant Park, which included police intervening in at least one altercation among people gathered, according to video from the scene. <\/p>\n

Officers also shut down an unauthorized viewing party when the game was projected onto the side of a building on 33rd Street not far from The Garden. <\/p>\n

The possibility of a sweep drove ticket prices up to more than $10,000 apiece over the weekend, and the price is about the same for an if-necessary Game 6, which is more likely now after San Antonio guaranteed a Game 5 back in Texas.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 20,000 people will get the opportunity to attend each night in the Big Apple. Alvarado knows far more will be watching on television all over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that can\u2019t afford it, we improvise,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re New Yorkers. We\u2019re going to find a way to watch a game, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo contributed to this report. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Inside Madison Square Garden, Spike Lee wore a Knicks jersey with Pope Leo\u2019s name…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":854318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,2738,2734,348791,69,23608,57,348792,122871,348793,37352,1260,6326,3578,401,405,403,3122,5226,5225,5228,5227,3138,62,358,5028,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":["post-854317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-connecticut","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-daniel-radcliff","tag-donald-trump","tag-eli-manning","tag-general-news","tag-greg-weldon","tag-jose-alvarado","tag-leo-knicks","tag-national-basketball-association","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-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-texas","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":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854317","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=854317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}