This weekend brought about the perfect storm for the insomniacs of London. Those in England’s capital may still be adjusting to the late servings of World Cup action but the temptation to pull that all-nighter only grew with another major North American-based sporting event taking place: the NBA Finals.
Yellow and red shirts of Brazil and Morocco decorated central London late on Saturday evening. By the early hours of Sunday morning, the Victoria area was dominated by blue and orange in anticipation of the New York Knicks Game 5 triumph against the San Antonio Spurs to win their first championship since 1973.
Greenwood, a live sports bar situated opposite Victoria train station in central London, has been building up to this moment for weeks.
They first hosted Knicks-specific watch parties attracting around 200 supporters during the team’s Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Philadelphia 76ers in early May. These came through work with The Knicks organisation, which was looking to build a footprint in London.
“We joined platforms with the Knicks, NBA Europe and basketball communities in London to reach out to fans,” Hayden Carpenter, of Greenwood London, tells The Athletic. “With each watch party, the anticipation for the next has been insane. And it’s not just American fans either: it’s fans of American sport from the UK, Australia and other places too.”
Six weeks later, the demand had tripled to 600 Knicks fans pre-booking space in their establishment — including former Great Britain wheelchair basketball Paralympics gold medalist and TV presenter Ade Adepitan, who was born the same year as the Knicks’ last championship win and started supporting them in the 1990s.
“It was amazing to find a Knicks community, 600-strong,” he tells The Athletic at sunrise. “People were here four hours before the game; absolutely rampant. By now, we’ve been here for seven hours. That is dedication.
“I’ve watched the whole play-offs at home on my laptop, texting friends, but as it got closer to today, I realised this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m not going to live until I’m 106. I can’t wait another 53 years for this, so I want to celebrate it collectively. My wife actually found this place on Instagram and I’m so glad I came.”
Greenwood obtained a late licence to show both the Brazil versus Morocco game and the NBA Finals, but quickly filtered the football followers out of the venue around 1am so more Knicks fans could watch their team in that segment of the bar half an hour later. By that time, the place was a sea of royal blue.
As well as the customary commemorative T-shirts and waving towels, cardboard cutouts of players also served their purpose. Some supporters posed for pictures with their favourites during the night but others turned to more visceral ways of showing their support.
Like Adepitan waving around the Josh Hart cutout from the photo below after the 31-year-old drove through the Spurs defence and earned a free throw as he was pushed while putting the Knicks within six points of the Spurs late in the second quarter.
Ade Adepitan gets in the spirit of things (Art de Roche/The Athletic)
“That’s one of the hardest games I’ve ever had to watch in my life,” he adds. “For 90 per cent of the game, I thought we weren’t going to do it but when I look back, I think: ‘Why did I doubt the Knicks?’. These guys have done it time and again from 20-29 points down, and always come back. It was destiny. It was meant to be.”
Behind for most of the game, “Let’s Go Knicks” chants were most common throughout.
Once the tables started to turn in the fourth quarter, the tone shifted from hope to anticipation that another historic comeback was on the cards. Jalen Brunson, who became the second player in NBA history to score 45-plus points on the road in a title-clinching victory after Michael Jordan, was key to that momentum shift and started receiving booming “MVP” chants from the entire bar as soon as he levelled the scores at 83-83 with four minutes to play.
The Spurs’ Dylan Harper missing an attempt with the scores 90-88 to the Knicks with 29 seconds to play is what turned anticipation into expectation, with realisation setting in soon after.
pic.twitter.com/JXqKWLuhAM
— Art de Roché (@ArtdeRoche) June 14, 2026
“It’s often spoken about Premier League football having global reach but the NBA teams have it and people in London love the Knicks,” Adepitan says. “There is an affinity between London and New York. We have that diversity and culture that comes with an immigrant mentality. We’re brethren.”
He then makes a joking reference to the ‘My mayor’s Muslim, my bagels are Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in Four’ line that could apply to both cities as the Knicks supporters in London come together to show that, despite being across the pond, they have that Empire State of Mind.
4:30am in London pic.twitter.com/l6F2ARwab9
— Art de Roché (@ArtdeRoche) June 14, 2026
