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This is about a game, about overcoming adversity, about beating the odds, and about a city that is at once great and glamorous, yet oppressively hard to live in.
But the Knicks, in winning their first championship in 53 years, are not just a New York story. Their teamwork, discipline and dedication became a national story, a Cinderella story. They touched hearts in a very cynical culture.
Imagine if politicians acted like this. If they put aside their hyper-partisanship and ideological agendas for the good of the country. If their default setting was cooperation and compromise rather than grabbing credit and demonizing opponents. Okay, you’re right. It’s too hard to imagine.
It’s not about how many points Jalen Brunson scored (45 in Game 5, when he single-handedly carried the Knicks to victory). It’s about how he was long dismissed as weak and undersized (by NBA standards). The 6-foot-2 Brunson, who wasn’t drafted until the second round, had something to prove. Think of all the folks who feel underrated or misunderstood at their job, and how deeply they want to be recognized for their value.
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It’s about the greatest city on earth, which is also the most frustrating city on earth. I once wrote that New Yorkers live under conditions that would cause riots in any other city, and I haven’t changed that view. Everybody is squeezed together. It’s absurdly overcrowded.
As a guy from Brooklyn, who played in a league and in the asphalt jungle, where if you lost you had to sit on the sidelines for a good long time, I don’t pretend to be unbiased. We played touch football in the street and had to stop every time a car came. That was before we got on the grass field because someone cut a hole in the chain-link fence. Very Noo Yawk.
Every day more than 4 million people pack themselves into subways, mostly at the bottom of deep tunnels, and at rush hours must stand through stop and go service. Homelessness is a problem both in the subways and on the streets.
CHAOS UNFOLDS IN NEW YORK CITY AFTER KNICKS WIN FIRST NBA CHAMPIONSHIP IN DECADES
Many folks live in tiny apartments, with small dens having to double as bedrooms, and pay mightily for the privilege.
And yet, as street crowds gathered across the five boroughs, they broke into a rendition of the Frank Sinatra song: “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York…”
Other cities, of course, have similar problems, so New York is just urban America writ large: Taller buildings, dirtier streets, piled-up garbage, more panhandlers, struggling schools, odious smells.
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And the traffic is horrendous. Only Los Angeles is worse. Don’t show me any surveys, I know. Try getting into the Lincoln Tunnel.
That’s why authorities slapped a $9 entrance fee on anyone driving into Manhattan below 60th Street. And parking: Fugeddaboudit!
Unfortunately, some thugs turned violent after the Knicks’ victory. There were 63 arrests, 10 cops injured, four people stabbed and a 17-year-old boy shot in the foot. That’s the dark side of New York, which coexists with places like Broadway and Fifth Avenue.
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When I was based in New York, the biggest stories involved crime. Race riots. Murders. The Central Park Five. The Zodiac Killer. Al Sharpton got stabbed.
Things are nowhere near as bad these days in the Apple and other cities, but there are still plenty of neighborhoods where you cross the street to avoid trouble.
When I was leaving in 1990 to return to Washington, I wrote a magazine piece with Donald Trump on the cover. The hotel-builder’s tabloid exploits, breathlessly chronicled by the New York Post — this was even before “The Apprentice” – symbolized a culture in which readers thrive on celebrity gossip to distract them from the daily dreariness of their lives. He always called me back. I figured, well, I’ll never have to deal with this guy again.
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I was at Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals when Willis Reed limped onto the court for their first championship. I watched on TV in 1973 when the team, now with Earl the Pearl, won again. Little did I know there would be a half-century wait till the next one, so many years of so many awful teams.
There’s also a heartwarming father-son tale, with Jalen’s dad, a journeyman player with the 1999 Knicks who lost the Finals to the San Antonio Spurs, being avenged — and the normally stoic younger Brunson dissolving into tears as they hugged.
If you look at the history of movies and television shows, everyone loves a good comeback. And the Knickerbockers provided just that in this series.
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In every win, the team fell behind by double digits and clawed their way back — especially in Game 4, when the New Yorkers, despite a record-breaking 29-point deficit, won it in the final second with that now-famous tip-in by OG Anunoby. Saturday night’s clincher was also won in the final seconds.
Doesn’t that stir every youngster or former youngster who dreamed of hitting the last-inning homer or catching the winning touchdown pass?
It was also nice to see the immature, 7-foot-5 Victor Wembanyama, who acted like a creepy villain, miss the last shot in each of the last two contests.
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I know, it’s only a game. There will be other games, other sports, other heroes.
But this one touched a raw nerve because the Knicks, who won 13 straight, were always coming from behind, fueled by a beautiful passing offense, and were written off as lucky overachievers who would wilt like fading flowers when facing a “real” tough team.
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