SI:AM | My Night at the Epicenter of Knicks Fever
Good morning, I'm Dan Gartland. Don't tell my boss, but I'm going to go take a nap. I had a very late night last night soaking up the NBA Finals atmosphere in New York.
In today's SI:AM: Wemby powers Spurs to big winHow an NFL stadium preps for the World CupThe slugger who could shine in Judge's absence
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I'm tired, but it was worth it
I don't get many chances to just be a sports fan. Writing a sports newsletter five days a week means that if I'm watching a game, more often than not I'm also thinking about how I might write about it the next day. I watched Game 1 of the NBA Finals on my couch, occasionally jotting down notes on my phone. But for Game 3, I wanted to be a fan.
I'd say that I'm a lapsed Knicks fan. I've lived my entire life in the New York area and grew up rooting for the Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Rangers (in that order). I remember sitting in the last row of Madison Square Garden to watch the Knicks play Yao Ming's Rockets on Super Bowl Sunday as a 13-year-old in 2006, probably wearing the Allan Houston jersey I owned at the time. I spent two years living with two massive Knicks fans from Brooklyn when I went to college in the Bronx, and we'd watch the Carmelo Anthony-era Knicks most nights. But being a national sportswriter means I have to pay attention to teams outside of New York, and so following the Knicks became less of a priority.
But with the Knicks in the NBA Finals for the first time since I became a basketball fan, I knew I had to experience a game the way millions of people in the New York metro area have-not making notes about the box score in my living room, but living and dying with every shot.
I decided to meet up with a couple of friends (including one of those aforementioned former roommates) at a bar in Midtown. I live about an hour outside the city, so I knew that going into Manhattan would make writing this newsletter the following morning a struggle-I got home at 1:30 a.m. and started writing at 6:30-but I wouldn't have done anything differently. The energy in New York was as electric as everyone has said it is. I've never been on a train going into the city on a weeknight that was as crowded as the one I was on yesterday. It was amazing to see not just the people of New York decked out in Knicks gear, but the city itself transformed into one giant monument to the Knicks. Big office buildings were lit up in orange and blue. Streetlights were adorned with Knicks flags. I passed a deli with orange and blue balloons ringing the doorway and "WE'RE BACK" painted on the window. And that's just in Midtown, the most boring part of the city. In the neighborhoods where people actually live, fans gathered in the streets for impromptu watch parties.
I can't provide too many details about the game itself. Like I said, I wasn't writing down my observations like I would have if I were at home. I can say with certainty that Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle were brilliant. Dylan Harper made some big plays that caused everyone in the bar to groan, but I just checked the stats and saw he was 5-for-18 from the floor. The Knicks were sloppy. They didn't commit an outrageous number of turnovers (13), but the majority of them seemed to be the result of baffling mental errors rather than excellent defense. Knicks coach Mike Brown was upset with the officiating, but I don't think I'm capable of taking an objective stance on that given who I watched the game with.
The Knicks lost, but that was still one of the best sports experiences I've had in a long time. It was thrilling to be surrounded by so many people who were totally locked in on the game, clapping after every made basket like you would if you were in the building. People chanted "de-fense" as the Knicks tried to mount a late comeback. They went silent when Castle made both free throws in the final seconds to ice the game, and they scattered out onto the sidewalk when the buzzer sounded like roaches when the lights come on.
Every fan occasionally needs to be reminded why they care about sports. There are plenty of reasons these days to become disillusioned with the fan experience: pervasive gambling advertisements, greedy owners, splintered broadcast rights that make finding the game a pain. But I've always been a sports fan because of the drama and the community. Game 3 at that bar on East 40th Street had more than enough of both. At halftime, my friend Jon asked me what angle I was going to take with my column the next morning. I told him, "That I had a great time with my friends."
The best of Sports Illustrated
- Facing a major deficit and a roaring Madison Square Garden crowd, Victor Wembanyama delivered 32 points and a dominant two-way performance to pull the Spurs back into the series. Chris Mannix details how Wemby refused to let the Spurs fold.
- Before the game, Liam McKeone talked to Knicks fans, who had no regrets about shelling out for lofty ticket prices. McKeone reports that the Spurs turned around and used that hostile MSG crowd to help fuel them and capture Game 3.
- Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium is now ready to host the World Cup after extensive preparations, ranging from installing a new grass pitch to covering up roughly 1,500 corporate logos. I got an inside look at it all for the latest Stadium Wonders episode. (I also got to go up on the stadium's cutting-edge, eight-petal retractable roof.)
- Gilberto Manzano kicks off our Super Bowl LXI road map series with Jacksonville, a team on the rise with a young general manager and head coach, and talent on both sides of the ball.
- Which Super Bowl-winning quarterback has the better case for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Russell Wilson or Eli Manning? Matt Verderame polls eight voters and renders an early verdict.
- Today marks the seventh anniversary of the major league debut of Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez. With Aaron Judge out at least two months, Tom Verducci thinks it's a good time to give the underrated Alvarez his proper due.
- Don't dismiss the recent observations from a .169-hitting Manny Machado as just an anti-analytics rant, Verducci says. Older hitters are finding it more difficult to get a hit than ever before.
- As the NBA Draft draws closer, Kevin Sweeney provides player comparisons for each potential lottery pick.
The top five…
… things I saw last night:
5. I didn't get a picture, but I saw a guy wearing an Allonzo Trier Knicks jersey. Don't worry if you don't know who that is. He was an undrafted free agent whose NBA career lasted 88 games across two seasons.
4. Stephon Castle's unguardable alley-oop to Victor Wembanyama.
3. Angels first baseman Trey Mancini's RBI single in his first MLB plate appearance since July 2023. The former Orioles, Astros and Cubs player went 3-for-4 in his first game since being called up from Triple A.
2. The totally bonkers Brewers-A's game. Milwaukee won 15–14 in 12 innings after both teams scored four runs in the 10th.
1. Jalen Brunson's circus shot in the third quarter.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | My Night at the Epicenter of Knicks Fever.
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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 9:12 AM.