What the Knicks Playoffs Revealed About New York City

It turns out the best part of our city is free

For the last few months, New York City has been completely consumed by the Knicks, who clinched their first NBA championship in 53 years last week.

There were New Yorkers who spent every other night for months eating chicken wings, drinking beer, and hoping and cheering and praying their hearts out on game day. Lifelong city dwellers say they’ve never felt their city’s joy quite like this before. Experts have coined a term for it: collective effervescence, the specific kind of euphoria that happens when millions of people experience the same happiness at the same time.

It was genuinely remarkable, and it changed our city.

I’m fortunate to have had a front row seat to all of it, and to have immersed myself completely. I went to three playoff games live, and watched the rest in dirty sports bars, in restaurants, on the street, and in people’s backyards. I was at the epic West Village outdoor watch party when we won. On Thursday I was at the parade bright and early, letting the orange and blue confetti fall all over me.

Here are some takeaways from what might be the greatest stretch New York City has ever lived through.

Sometimes the Best Things in Life Are Free

Usually New York City runs on money and access. The more of both you have, the more you get to see, experience, and do.

But during the NBA Finals, something strange happened: an inverse relationship between exclusivity and fun. The members’ clubs and Michelin-starred restaurants had the games on, but the vibe inside was muted. The real energy, the kind you could feel in your bones, was in the parks and on the streets, packed with people of every income and background.

It turns out there is something in this city that’s actually free. It’s community, and it was really nice to see.

New Yorkers now have even crazier notions of what we can achieve

New Yorkers have always had wildly inflated ideas about our own capabilities, no thanks to the song drilled into us about how if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere (i.e. if we can survive carrying groceries ten blocks and riding the subway, we can do literally anything.)

Now that the Knicks have overcome odds that bordered on statistically impossible - a 22-point fourth quarter comeback against Cleveland that ESPN gave a 0.1% chance of happening, a historic Finals comeback against San Antonio from 29 points down - we’ve taken it to a new level.

I’m already hearing friends say things like, “I can do that impossible thing. I am a Knick.”

New Yorkers are superstitious AF

There was the woman who sat in the same bar stool for every single playoff game, and successfully crowdfunded her bar tab. There were the people who saged Madison Square Garden after Trump’s visit jinxed a game. I wore my lucky hat so religiously that by the end of the playoffs, my hair was a visibly different color on the bottom than the top.

I don’t know if I believe in superstition exactly. But I believe in putting energy into the world that the players can feel. And I have no doubt everyone did their part.

New Yorkers are extremely good at climbing things

Light posts, trees, scaffolding, whatever offered a better view of a watch party or a parade, someone in this city found a way up it. I have no idea where everyone picked up these skills, since we don’t live in a jungle. But I’m impressed.

New Yorkers split into two camps. Again.

During the pandemic, the city divided into the people who left for Miami and the people who stayed and leaned all the way into the weirdness of walktails, chair dancing in clubs, speakeasies, etc.

The Knicks playoffs did something similar. There were the people who understood this was a rare, enormous thing happening to their city and threw themselves into it, basketball fans or not. And there were the people who complained about road closures and how much everyone was talking about sports.

Both camps are fine. It’s just useful to know which one you’re in.

Our appetite for merch has officially become unhinged

I already knew New Yorkers loved merch. But this was different. People now own a hat for a specific game. For example, I saw one for the Eastern Conference Finals Game 3 and a separate one for Finals Game 5. What happens to these hats next, I genuinely do not know.

You can put a television absolutely anywhere

I saw Knicks games playing in spa saunas, inside grocery stores, projected onto the brick walls of abandoned buildings. The city has apparently solved the technical challenge of watching basketball literally anywhere a human being might stand. The TVs are already being put to use for the world cup. Summer House next?

Partying is not dead

Everyone keeps saying Gen Z killed partying, but I saw sidewalks packed at 1 a.m. on a Monday after a game. I now believe the next generation knows how to party; they are just saving it for the things that actually matter.

It is possible to love a place with all your heart

My heart feels like it is going to burst from all the love it has for New York City. I never knew I could love a place like that, and I know so many people who feel the same way.

Anything can happen

Mostly, the Finals taught us that a game can turn around in seconds, and that nothing is over until it actually is. We will never quit anything early again, and I hope we never forget this lesson. How exhilarating is it to live in a world where anything can happen!