NEW YORK (AP) — In the final moments before the Knicks ended their 53-year NBA championship drought, Yolanda Matos found herself hosting a scrum of anxious New Yorkers on the sidewalk outside her Brooklyn home.
Heads lowered in quiet prayer. Boxes of pizza passed from people in jerseys to people in suits. And Matos — a retired correctional officer with a strictly enforced policy against premature celebration — waited until the final buzzer before leading the shrieking, weeping, chest-thumping crowd through the frenzied streets.
“The camaraderie and craziness is something I’ve never seen in my whole life,” Matos marveled. “These Knicks really got everyone outside.”
The team’s victory Saturday night over the San Antonio Spurs saw moments of mayhem, with dozens of arrests and property damage mostly clustered around Madison Square Garden.
But scenes like the one on Matos’ block were far more common: neighbors and strangers of every age and background, clustered around a TV or projector as their collective stress gave way to an unusual moment of citywide euphoria.
Impromptu dance parties raged until dawn — then continued Sunday, as delirious New Yorkers flocked to the Puerto Rican Day parade, also attended by multiple Knicks players, including Brooklyn native Jose Alvarado.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Knicks fan himself who has popped up at watch parties around the city, announced the team would be honored Thursday by a ticker-tape parade.
By Sunday night, many New Yorkers were struggling to find a historical comparison to what they were experiencing.
“I was there for the Giants’ Super Bowls, the Yankees dynasty, the Mets in ’86, which was really special. None of that comes even close to this,” said Marlon Rice, a 51-year-old community advocate. “The entire city is on tilt because of the Knicks. I just hope this stays and we can enjoy an entire summer off this vibe.”
That joy had been building for weeks, as the Knicks embarked on a historic playoff run marked by one stunning comeback after another. For fans long accustomed to last-minute heartbreak, processing this new reality seemed to grow into a communal endeavor — requiring a new sort of viewing experience.
To meet that need, unofficial watch parties cropped up across the city streets and parks, gas stations and delis, synagogues, mosques and at least one funeral home — giving residents the chance to watch shoulder to shoulder with fellow fans, without shelling out a month’s rent or more for a ticket.
Hours before tipoff on Saturday, lawn chairs and sound systems were already set up on a street corner facing the facade of a building where a Cuban restaurant’s projection of each game had reliably drawn thousands of people. By then, the phrase “Knicks in 5” had become both standard greeting and farewell among New Yorkers.
The ensuing delirium has upended schedules, added to milestones and bred a strange sense of civic pride. Newborns at Lenox Hill Hospital received Knicks-embroidered hats. The cast of Hamilton ended their performance Sunday with a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” Bus drivers, firefighters and subway workers are greeted as celebrities, sometimes breaking from their duties to join the celebration.
In one of many viral videos, a pair of sanitation workers allow private citizens to toss bags of trash into their truck, prompting cheers from bystanders.
Rabbi Yakov Bankhalter, the leader of an Orthodox Jewish community space near Madison Square Garden, said his own hastily-scheduled watch party had ended with fans of every faith spinning joyously in the Manhattan streets.
“Wherever you are in New York, it feels like there is nothing but the Knicks,” Bankhalter said on Monday morning. “We’re still in the euphoria. It’s unbelievable. It’s still unbelievable.”
Jake Offenhartz, The Associated Press
