In Five

What I saw when the Knicks took the chip

Jun 15, 2026

This is the twenty-third edition of a periodic newsletter. I share notes and images from stories I’ve covered. Subscriptions cost nothing.

The 2026 NBA Championship is in the books.

And is it ever.

I watched the final minutes on 7th Avenue in the West Village, the crowd exploding under a live projection of OG Anunoby grabbing the last rebound. A neighborhood of Instagramers and influencers now stood in vintage hometown pride.

The chins dropped. Hands covered mouths…

In the aftermath I zipped up to Penn Station, an academy of disconnection and willful blindness. But not on Saturday. The Knicks betrayed that sub rosa bond among Gothamites. A once-in-a-generation togetherness, often reserved for tragedy, now lit up the gritty warrens under Midtown.

What happened in New York during the NBA post-season was something like a superstorm or a solar eclipse. The Knicks’ orbit overlaps with that of the Yankees and Mets, Giants and Jets, Rangers and whatever — the US Open and the UFC.

In turn, this ignited the city in familiar ways, but at a high multiple. First, there’s the urge to join what’s going on, whether a crowded brunch spot or a style of headphones or a brand of winter coat. On a five-minute walk through Battery Bark City this week, I spotted two Knicks hats, a Knicks sweater, and two Knicks Jerseys, one of which was worn by a dog.

Then there’s a heroic type of human connection in an otherwise unforgiving city. This is the stuff of the FDNY and the ER nurses and the bartenders who know when one of their regulars needs a water. When it counts, New Yorkers like stepping up.

For many in Times Square, ground-level cheering didn’t feel adequate. The story went vertical. I’m not talking about a few drunks on lamp posts, but squads of the faithful climbing onto buses…

…a pack of onlookers cooling their heels on a 42nd Street marquee.

The revelers invaded parked school buses meant for World Cup shuttling. A man debriefed out a bus window, speaking at 10,000 volts: “You see what I’m talkin’ about?…You see what I’m talkin’ about?” Inexplicably, a microphone appeared for him from below. Then a fireworks-type boom sounded a few doors down. As smoke drifted upwards, he grabbed the mic and kept on about the Knicks. Video here.

This is still the 2020s. Video of arrests and fist-fights and a burning school bus will linger all week. But these are old stories, the background to this violent decade.

For 53 years the Knicks taught us that the country is always changing. That’s why their drought seemed so oppressive. The films of Reed, Frazier, and Bradley looked grainier each time.

Something reset this weekend, not just in NBA history, but with a City that seemed tired of being pissed off for every minute of every day.

A total Kumbaya moment? No, not for our detractors. Or worse: the apostates, like the former Queens man who snarled Midtown traffic on Monday only to appear on the MSG Jumbotron under a wall of boos.

Good faith visitors were welcome. Brazilian soccer jerseys dotted the streets. These fans know from joy. A different game from another hemisphere, but they understood — like elite river guides keeping the pace in Nova Iorque.