The skies have never been more blue over the city of New York, the sun never more warm, and the Knicks-merch more profound and ubiquitous. The other day my daughter had her first basketball lesson on a court near Battery Park City and I felt a strange sensation in my heart when I noticed the coach was wearing a Tyson Chandler jersey. It was not the last jersey I would see at the park, children young enough to never know the Mike Woodson years or have to convince themselves Emmanuel Mudiay was the answer, gleefully tearing around in jerseys with "Brunson" and "Towns" on the back. I saw a dog in the passenger seat of a luxury car wearing a Knicks shirt. Orange and blue flags are flying from every restaurant, look up and you'll find them swaying from windows and fire escapes. Line-waiting culture finding praxis with bandwagon fandom as people idle in formation, wrapping around the block just to get into the most mid sports bar hours before tip-off. Bodegas and stationary stores are stocking Knicks hats, for when you need that Juul fix and a last minute game-time accessory.
With the Knicks up 2-0 over San Antonio in the NBA Finals and the series shifting to New York, the collective spirit of the city has never been higher than right now. Which made it the perfect time for President Trump to tip the situation on its head and send the vibes into a tailspin. The president's plans to attend Game 3 of the finals at Madison Square Garden is already making lives shittier for people before tip-off. On Saturday, the Knicks announced that fans should be prepared for more "TSA-style screening procedures" at the Garden, and that no bags would be allowed. Worse, anyone planning to come to the game should plan to be there two hours ahead of start time.
— NEW YORK KNICKS (@nyknicks) June 6, 2026
Of course near-dystopian security theater is not a new thing to Knicks fans, as owner James Dolan has enjoyed running his own private panopticon for some time. Now, fans will be at the mercy of two paranoid and brain-rotted men whose family wealth was largely extracted from regular New Yorkers.
Granted, you may not feel sympathy for ticketholders given the get-in-the-door cost of Game 3 prices out most folks under the Chalamet-line. While there are certain to be New Yorkers who have emptied their savings and raided rainy-day funds just to witness the Knicks in the Finals at the Garden, this is largely the environs of the wealthy and powerful. For everyone else, there is the more egalitarian prospect of the raucous outdoor watch parties held outside the Garden as the Knicks have made this year's playoff run. On Sunday, the NBA and the Knicks announced that the watch party outside the Garden would be cancelled.
The president, along with Dolan and the overtime-hungry and riot gear-loving ranks of the New York Police Department, have done something remarkable. It's deft work to alienate Knicks fans across the socio-economic and political spectrum in just a few short moves. Do you know the level of fuckery it would take to unite wealthy hedge fund goblins and Park Slope co-op members, finance bros and school bus drivers, and uncles of all kinds of inscrutable politics in New York?
It is entirely possible these poorly-laid plans are the perfectly manufactured crash out that will halt the Knick's playoff winning streak. But in reality all that's happened is that the world's most-attention hungry man, a person so thin-skinned and needy that he makes his closest sycophants heap praise on him while wearing ill-fitting shoes, has conspired to do the very thing that will hurt his ego the most: getting booed. It happened when he went to a Commanders game last fall. It happened the last two times he tried to make a New York sporting event about him, at the US Open Mens final last year, even a Yankees game on 9/11. Never forget. Which cabinet member's job is it going to be to lie to him and say, "No, sir, they're saying 'Boo-Bong.'"
