CHAMPIONSHIP STATE OF MIND (in the heart of the city)

The scene outside MSG at 2:30 pm is unlike any I’ve experienced outside the Garden. It wasn’t just the vast amount of World Cup jerseys, the matching in quantity, if not surpassing, endless figures passing by wearing orange & blue, or the almost comically large police force, stationed along the building to the point no one could reasonably feel safe. It was the feeling in the air. The New York Knicks are one win away from beating the San Antonio Spurs to win their first championship in 53 years. If you’re a Knicks fan, that “it’s been 53 years” has been heard time and time again over the prior weeks that you could still hear it in your head before you go to sleep. But something no athletes who have chosen to avoid the Knicks would know is that when the Knicks are good, New York can feel it. The sun is shining just a little differently as I stand near the now-famous orange and blue subway entrance of 34th & Penn. There is no exaggeration when these media personalities say, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” As a 30-year-old from NY, I have been a Knicks fan for a little over half my life, since I first started watching basketball at 13. I can say confidently, nothing beats the feeling in that New York air. A concoction of exorbitant optimism and belief fueled by its newest motto (which should replace the state’s “Excelsior” from here on out), “Knicks in five,” and cautiousness, coupled with seemingly comical superstitions that we would never give credence to for any other single thing in our lives. Yet not an ounce of this would compare to what the scene in the area will look like some eight hours later.

I have only attended 2 Knicks games in my lifetime. The first was in 2014 when a Melo-led Knicks lost to a Cleveland Cavaliers team, before LeBron’s return, where we lost to the hands of Jarrett Jack without an injured Kyrie. The second was in March 2025, when they blew out the Washington Wizards without Brunson. I had both ultimate letdown and intense joy in attending those games, respectively. To me, they were symbolic of my experience as a Knicks fan to this point. Fast-forward to 2026, and I couldn’t afford a ticket to one of these games if I sold both of my kidneys and donated enough blood to fill a kid-sized swimming pool. However, I could be in the “city that never sleeps” for the celebration. Waking up that day, it just felt right; this would be the day we do it. Granted, I’m not trying to come off like LeBron talking about Kobe’s 81-point game or something, but it was the feeling in the air. I was also nearing my breaking point due to the emotional rollercoaster this team was putting me through from the start of the East Conference Finals, let alone the seemingly insurmountable 29-point comeback in Game 4. But all the hours spent watching this franchise on MSG (and definitely not redditstreams), were all leading up to this.

As the hours began to fly by during a walk to Central Park, Midtown Comics, and the NBA Store- that was moving like buying merch at a concert you arrived at when the show is supposed to start, and the artist is coming out in either 5 seconds or 50 minutes- the anticipation was growing ever palpable. The football jerseys began to dwindle at the start of every new hour, and the orange and blue that paint the New York sky were growing in representation with every person that passed by. So too did the number of cops and barriers as they began closing off streets and sealing off all entrances to MSG, aside from those lucky to get tickets to the watch party. By the time the game finally tipped off, the streets resembled my experience attending Rolling Loud more than they did people watching a game in another state, at various bars, or areas where they could watch it on their phone. After pushing through an endless sea of people, I made my way to Penn Station to be in, hopefully, the best possible position for the celebration to begin once the buzzer sounded, and everyone inevitably took to the streets of the city if the team pulled this off.

I’m at a bar that has people huddled around the entrance, all jumbled together and staring in, like a crowd outside the windows of Good Morning America. If there is one thing this team has shown over this season, it’s that nothing in this game matters until the 4th quarter has officially started. You could find no better representation of the pessimism and optimism I described earlier than right there in that crowd. As those 4th quarter minutes went down, and the Spurs’ lead decreased while the unreal number of points that Brunson had increased, the sheer tension of the desire in every fan to celebrate something that has been building up for 53 years could be felt everywhere; it was like a bomb defusal scene in The Hurt Locker, watching the seconds wane. As if all the ghosts the Knicks were hoping to exorcise were watching along with us. The beauty in the story and the magic of sports can be found right here in these finals. Whether it be ridiculous- in the form of an old tweet of Brunson’s from 10 years ago that says “1 more win,”- to crazy coincidental in the form of KAT’s first game as a Knick, wearing a shirt for the last time the Knicks were in the finals: 1999, against none other than the Spurs- to poetic in the form of Jalen Brunson playing against the team that his dad, Assistant Coach Rick Brunson, played against in said finals series for the Knicks, of which Jalen attended at just two-years-old. And every time someone on this team did the impossible or unbelievable, the tension only got thicker. Any pessimism I still held onto after the insurmountable 29-point comeback of Game 4 kept dwindling every time that beautiful man wearing number 11 made a shot. I’ll never forget watching that last quarter around strangers that you could talk to as if you knew them for years, all fixated on any screen their eyes could capture. Wembanyama takes a 3-point shot, OG grabs the rebound and…I don’t know how to describe it in a way that would do it the justice it deserves, but I can describe what I saw with my own two eyes.

The way everyone jumped and screamed simultaneously, I’m still surprised that we didn’t cause an earthquake, let alone that the streets above didn’t collapse into Penn Station. Take the moment of the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan, where Tom Hanks is staring in horror and awe at the carnage in front of him; this was the exact opposite of that. People running and screaming till their last breath in every direction. People are sitting on the floor with their faces in their hands, sobbing with pure joy. Confetti takes the place of raining bullets from all sides, if we’re keeping the analogy going. I saw a mass of people form a circle around a random man who proceeded to take his belt off and strike it at the ground, each smack succeeded by the screams of everyone surrounding him; the visual manifestation of “belt to ass.”

Though the NYPD had multiple exits out of Penn blocked, it didn’t take long for the horde to make its way to the streets, pouring out of the akin to Train to Busan or the bloody elevator scene in The Shining. I said it was like Rolling Loud earlier, but now we were reaching Astroworld Fest levels of congestion and sheer volume of people. But God damn if I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. You could go up to any person in Knicks gear and grab them and celebrate as if you both had played on the team and took on San Antonio with the rest of the team like 2K MyCareer. People are climbing street signs and lampposts just to scream, and in one instance, doing the Swanton Bomb off the top like Jeff Hardy in his prime. Down one block, multiple people are standing on a cop car posing for photos, which I would later find out had been smashed up not long after I walked past.

In the moment, was it frustrating and worrisome to be dealing with everything going on, with little to no help at all from the police, who had everyone confined to the sidewalks, squeezed in closer than necessary, while some gave the impression they were waiting to just use a little force on whoever the first unlucky person was that did the wrong thing? Absolutely. But after making it out the other side, it all feels right in hindsight. I don’t think there was a single thing in a 20-mile radius, with MSG being the epicenter, that hadn’t had someone on top of it, from a fire hydrant to a 30-story building. I eventually met up with a group of friends who drove in to join in the celebration, resulting in a bottle of Teremana being finished and random conversations with people walking by. New York was alive in a way that I don’t believe has ever been seen, regardless of any sports teams that have ever won in NY, let alone basketball-wise. With all the feelings felt throughout all of this celebrating, its surprising to even me when I say that before this story concluded with me finally falling asleep at 10 am, my train ride on the LIRR (sadly) included a passenger who went between two of the train’s cars, climbed up said train, banging on the top and screaming while it was in motion for a solid 20 minutes, twice. I might have a better chance of remembering that entire night than the names of my own potential children or grandchildren when I am hopefully over 80 years old and losing it on my deathbed.

But this post isn’t just about “hey, listen to the experience I had watching the Knicks win while in the city, all these people are so crazy.” What we just witnessed was something that every New Yorker around the planet can feel, even if they only had the smallest amount of care in the Knicks during their lifetime. This organization was ridiculed and counted out time and time again. It was only a little over a decade ago that fans were showing up to games with brown paper bags covering their faces. It always felt like the lights were too bright and/or things just never have and never would go our way. Basketball, as many have said over these days leading up to the celebration, is, if not the whole heartbeat, then it’s one of those two pumps in the heart of the city. When the Knicks are good, you feel it in the city more than anything, I don’t care what team we’re talking about. In every facet of the game, what the Knicks did was so impressive that I can’t help but laugh when I think about it. So much so that fans of other teams are still injecting endless amounts of “copium” online like a kid scarfing down candy on Halloween, just to discredit them. But everything they did, fighting back, never getting too flustered, how could you not walk away inspired?

Up and down that roster were people who had the utmost confidence in their ability to do and perform what/where they needed to. The confidence, faith, and trust in the endless hours they put in to finding their space and their shots, never letting doubt or the moment engulf them like an unkempt fire. This win was for anyone who has ever been doubted. Whether you kept going or gave up, this is your sign that anything really is possible. If you’re down 29 points right now in your life, you can come back; there is more than enough time left on the clock. As the Finals MVP himself said: “You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.” What more proof do you need that it doesn’t matter who you are? If you put in the work for yourself, and stay consistent, you will get your reward; anything really is possible. Undersized guards, who in today’s game are anybody under 6’4”, have been seen as not worth it; “if your best player is small, you're not winning.” Simply look at the response from other fans in the past when Brunson would be mentioned. Yet, that man who has been counted out and doubted has done something no one else has done in 53 years; he led the Knicks to a championship, and not only that, but he dropped over 40 points. I mean, what else could anyone have to say? In fact, it doesn’t matter. When the next NBA season starts, and the Knicks have their first home game, the rings and the banner will come out for them, no other team, them.

It may be New York bias, but I can’t remember another championship that was more impactful, meaningful, or impressive since the Cavaliers’ 3-1 comeback against the Warriors. The man has one of the most solid careers in the history of the game of basketball, not just the NBA. I’m talking about a career for someone who solely plays the sport. What could be more inspiring than that being the case for someone who, in a league of Goliaths, the undersized David succeeded above them all, for a city that no other can say another deserved it more. When I got the chance to finally watch the celebration and see Jalen’s interview at the podium, I could not help but cry. The same as anyone else on this planet, I have doubts. I think about the worst scenario, and sometimes it can feel too daunting to tackle. I’ve felt like I’ve been down 29 points in my life before, where things are happening that can make you think, "What's the point of even trying?” I know it’s not the game that sealed the deal, but that game is the ultimate encapsulation of what makes this team so damn special. What that man showed me on the court in terms of belief in oneself, confidence, dedication and hope, all wrapped up in the guise of a 45-point performance, is something in the vein of seeing real aliens for the first time: you may believe its possible, but until you actually see it with your own two eyes, you don’t really know the impact it will have on you. Even then, it won’t feel real. Of course, it’s not just Brunson as a one-man wrecking crew. This team is special all around, from OG to Kolek. How can you find a Knicks fan who can have anything negative to say? They brought it home. If they weren’t them, it never would have happened the way it did, and who would want it any other way?

“For the first time in 53 years, the night came alive with the celebration of Knicks fans everywhere, and a line that hadn’t been heard since: the New York Knicks are NBA Champions.”

CHAMPIONSHIP STATE OF MIND (in the heart of the city)

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