NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson was wowed upon hearing how high the price of the cheapest ticket in New York for Game 3 of the NBA Finals series between the Knicks and Spurs had climbed on the secondary market.
What left the Knicks star nearly stumped was determining what he would deem worthy of spending $7,500 to go see.
“That’s a good question,” Brunson said Thursday. He paused for a few seconds before delivering his answer: “A live Michael Jackson performance.”
From Bay Ridge to the Bronx and beyond, the Big Apple has gone nuts for the Knicks.
The team is not only in the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years, but New York is also riding a 12-0 roll after rallying from a 14-point second-half deficit in a 105-95 win at San Antonio in Game 1 on Wednesday night. Game 2 is Friday night in San Antonio before the series shifts to New York on Monday.
It seems as if the entire city is on board. There were thousands who filled Madison Square Garden to watch the game on the big screen, only to be matched by the thousands more celebrating outside in the shadow of the Empire State Building, lit up in blue and orange Knicks colours.
The MTA — the city’s transit authority — got into the spirit by painting several subway stops around the arena in Knicks colours. And Mayor Zohran Mamdani even signed an executive order temporarily lifting children’s bed-time hours.
“Knicks in Four!” chants erupted shortly after midnight, as fans climbed light posts and even on an ambulance outside of MSG.
Similar scenes were captured at a free watch party in Central Park, and across the five boroughs.
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.
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 still remains a basketball-mad metropolis. The buzz in the city has overwhelmed much talk of the World Cup, which opens in a week.
“Honestly, I just feel grateful to be here and experience the New York Knicks, doing what we haven’t done in a long time,” Owen Odigie said, celebrating the Game 1 win inside Madison Square Garden. “It’s special. It’s beautiful.”
Knicks forward Karl-Anthony Towns could feel the Big Apple energy some 1,800 miles away in San Antonio following Game 1.
“You feel the energy in the city, the grit, the grind, the hard work you’ve got to put in to make it in the city,” said Towns, who hails from New Jersey. “I think we reflect all our fans … when we step on that court with a Knicks jersey.”
Knicks fans even made their presence felt in San Antonio, beyond the familiar celebrities of Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Timothée 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, “Let’s go, Knicks,” during the national anthem.
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.
Spurs guard Julian Champagnie — a native New Yorker — wasn’t surprised to see the Knicks’ contingent.
“I kind of expected that,” Champagnie said. “I’m from New York. I know how New York fans travel and stuff like that, so I kind of expected that.”
