NEW YORK — What could have been the best night in a New York Knicks fan’s life instead felt like a massive middle finger. From Jimmy, with love.
Ahead of Game 3 of the NBA Finals, James Dolan, the billionaire ruling over the city’s favorite team, walked through the event level floor Monday night inside Madison Square Garden. He wore a pastel orange suit jacket that might’ve looked expensive, but couldn’t have cost as much as what most people paid for the opportunity to sit near the rafters. Then, Dolan made his way to the bulletproof box set up beneath the Lexus Suite Level. There, he sat next to his friend and fellow New Yorker, President Donald Trump, who was booed lustily by these constituents of Gotham.
Dolan had to have known how the price of admission — one couple interviewed spent the actual cost of a used luxury car — would be a financial burden for the people who love this team. He should’ve understood that inviting such an unpopular president would hijack attention away from the real focus of the night, and unnecessarily complicate logistics for the league. Still, Dolan didn’t care. Not about his fans, nor his players. Dolan saw this night, this big New York moment, and strangled the fun out of it. Whatever joy was left after fans trickled in through the police-state setup outside the building reached its expiration date when the Garden witnessed the Knicks lose 115-111 to the San Antonio Spurs.
The vibe — placed in a headlock, dragged out back, judo-hip tossed by Trump and beaten to an inch of its life — is gone. All thanks to Dolan.
Dolan can’t help himself. He’s thrown out fans who had the misfortune of rooting for a franchise owned by him; in 2019, he banned someone for telling him to “sell the team.” He turned the arena into Big Brother’s playground with all the facial recognition technology. In 2024, he made MSG go full MAGA when he allowed Trump to host a rally, where an insulting joke aimed at Puerto Rico became the headline.
This time, Dolan used an NBA Finals game hosted in Manhattan, the first one in a generation, to remind fans why it’s easy to love the team but not the boss.
Before the game, I climbed to the top of the Garden to meet the people who spent the money and braved the long lines. Jake Borden, 28, and Destiny Krause, 27, started their journey from the Jersey Shore a few minutes before 3 p.m. on Monday for the 8:30 tipoff. They were the first two people in their section, having dropped $11,000 each on upper balcony seats.
“We love the Knicks,” Borden said, explaining his rationale. Even so, he felt the inflation was absurd.
“Oh, way too expensive. I mean, there’s a lot of fans out there, and it should be more accessible,” Borden said. “Walking by some fans (saying), ‘We couldn’t get tickets,’ and they really deserve to be here. There’s a lot of people who don’t even care about the Knicks who might be here, you know, big suits. It should be for the fans.”
It would be hard to describe Trump as such a “fan.” Though he attended Knicks games in the ’90s, these days, Trump seems more into hosting caged fights in his backyard.
“The orange man should not be here,” said a man named Steve C., who asked if he could only give the first initial of his last name because he thought surveillance around the arena might eavesdrop on our conversation. Steve C. was half joking.
“It shouldn’t be this game! Pick another f—ing game! It ain’t about you,” Steve C. told me, as he stood up to allow another fan to pass through and get to his seat up in the heavens.
“I agree,” the man chimed in.
“It’s a photo op. It’s a bad PR spot. This is not a crowd that’s going to support him,” Steve predicted accurately. “That’s fine. You can pick your sides, that’s politics. Even if it was a crowd that supports him, they’d be so miserable for being outside … But to inconvenience people. Why this game? Why now?”
Steve had to wait outside and ask NYPD officers where to stand — though I heard from many fans that the police couldn’t offer up much assistance with directions. Still, he was in a rapturous mood, even after flying in the day of the game from his home in Houston. He planned to spend 15 hours on the ground in New York, his original hometown, and after the game, head back to LaGuardia Airport, where he’d sleep uncomfortably on a concourse seat not made for sleeping, just so he could catch a 6 a.m. flight to get back in time to let the babysitter leave Tuesday morning. He paid $3,000 for his game ticket.
Mike G. of Long Island, another fan who asked to only share the initial of his first name due to his job, came with his brother, and together they paid $4,250 a pop to sit on the catwalk inside the arena. Patrick Berry, a 66-year-old native from Harlem who now lives in Maryland, said his family surprised him with a ticket for Section 116, row 19, seat 18. His wife, daughter and niece pitched in for the $11,396 ticket. Isaac Dapkins, a doctor who was in middle school the last time the Knicks made the Finals, sat with his 13-year-old son Liam in what’s called the 400-level upper balcony “blue seats.” Dapkins came straight from work, so he draped his suit and business shirt over the back of Liam’s chair. Dapkins covered Liam’s ears when he told me how he paid roughly $7,000 for the seats. A Homeland Security officer walked past the father and son before he shared this.
These fans all shared similar experiences of paying way too much money and going through TSA checkpoints just to get inside the arena. Before the game, however, they couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“It’s absolutely worth it,” Mike G. said of the money he spent. “I don’t know if it’s going to be four or five, but the Knicks are gonna do it. And being at the Garden, can’t put a price tag on it.”
By the end of the game, that’s when the feel-good, no worries vibes shifted. I watched Mike G. and his suffering. There’s no angst like the angst on the catwalk. Mike G. didn’t sit in that swivel chair provided to patrons; instead, he stood and slurped on cups of ice. When Stephon Castle went to the free-throw line in the final seconds of a two-point game, Mike G. waved his arms back and forth and yelled “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Castle made the free throws anyway. After the buzzer, Mike G. slammed his plastic cup of water on a trash bin.
I felt bad for him, and wondered if the couple from Jersey Shore now regretted the $22,000 credit card debt for two tickets in the nosebleeds. I hoped Steve C. made it back to the babysitter on time, and thought about what 13-year-old Liam might tell his young children one day about this night.
Even an hour after the game, chants of “F— Donald Trump!” filled the night air from a crowd lingering outside the Moynihan Train Hall with the cameras rolling. It was vulgar, coming from a group of folks who wanted to go viral. However, nothing was as crass as Dolan’s decision Monday night. His was the biggest ‘Eff You’ to the people of New York.
