Published 10.27
NEW YORK. All of New York is, as they say here, on fire during the local basketball heroes Knicks’ quest for the first NBA title in 53 years.
But nowhere is the fire burning as intensely as on Rutherford’s rooftop restaurant across the street from Madison Square Garden.
There we see the biggest match played in the neighborhood in several decades together with a wild collection of hardcore fans.
– Knicks in four, they roar continuously so that it cracks in Sportbladet’s microphone.
Until that dream bursts…
The “Knicks in four” chant gets the pink mic muff familiar as soon as we emerge outside the arena known as “the world’s most famous” in the sparkling sunshine five hours before Finals number three between the New York Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs.
Because even then it is boiling in the tumult in the blocks of West Midtown and when excited fans in blue and orange see reporters and photographers, they very much want to share the certainty that the Knicks will follow up the two victories in Texas with two new triumphs at home in Manhattan and “sweep” Victor Wembanyama’s stoic gang.
That’s what happens when a team that almost everyone in this big city uniquely agrees on plays its first final since 1999 and can win for the first time since 1973 goes up 2-0 in the ultimate showdown.
“Knicks in four”, takes the form of a collective battle cry.
Blocking off streets
However, unlike during the conference finals against the Indiana Pacers last year – and earlier during this year’s playoffs – the party outside the Garden’s entrances never really gets going.
It just so happens that President Trump has decided to temporarily return to New York to take part in the biggest sporting event in his hometown in decades, and the security effort ahead of his arrival is extensive, to say the least.
Both local NYPD constables and Secret Service agents swarm around the storied old barn, and as the afternoon turns into evening, more and more streets and sidewalks in the surrounding area are blocked off completely sonically.
Those fans who don’t have tickets—and it’s the few mere mortals who do, commanding prices that would make even FIFA boss Infantino gasp for breath—are hustled off to so-called “watch parties” in Bryant Park at Grand Central Station and at Wollman Rink in Central Park, and soon the usually teeming plaza at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street is deserted, almost to the line formed by those who (presumably) sold a kidney and actually going to the game.
It’s only from the rooftop terrace of the Rutherford restaurant, across the street from the Garden’s VIP entrance, that the Knicks chants continue to blare.
There, the really die-hard fans were smart enough to park already at lunchtime and there they will stay all night long – without anyone being able to do anything about it.
It is of course crowded and a doorman with his arms crossed initially shakes his head grimly when we navigated past the police cordons with the help of our press cards and made our way to the entrance, but a little has been learned from famous hustlers to colleagues over the years – yes, like Marcus Leifby and Filip Lindfors – so after the manager is summoned we actually manage to talk our way in.
Similar to Håkan concert
Then there are still two hours left until the hoops stars start hitting single three-pointers against the baskets wall to wall, but ecstasy similar to that during the encores at an Ullevi concert with Håkan Hellström has been pumping between the tables for a long time.
The gangs of boys at the front of the balustrade have a perfect view of everything going on below and welcome the celebrities parading towards the VIP entrance with cheers and chants.
Timothée Chalamet is received with a particularly loud ovation and stops and hangs on in the “Knicks-in-Four” gap for a few moments.
For some reason, however, the Secret Service dislikes that kind of fuss and threatens via a guard to cancel the party if the happy fans don’t calm down a bit.
Quieting New Yorkers who have refueled since lunch is as difficult as getting cats to march in time, but no one wants to risk being kicked out of the best final party in town, so the celebrities who come limping after Chalamet – for example Ben Stiller, Jay-Z, Larry David, Mariska Hargitay, Yankees icon Derek Jeter and Henrik Lundqvist – have to settle for occasional cheers. And when, an hour before the start of the game, the presidential motorcade comes whizzing down the then completely deserted Eighth Avenue – a very strange sight on a weekday evening at 7:30 p.m. – everyone is careful not to tease the Secret Service with any unnecessary expressions of emotion.
Yelling can be done in pink microphones instead, it turns out. That’s what happens every time I hold out the Sportbladet sleeve in the noisy mess and ask for a comment. Everyone starts chanting again:
– Knicks in four, Knicks in four, Knicks in four!
An elderly gentleman on a ledge closer to the bar is alone in not joining in the roaring. He’s just scrolling on his phone and a eavesdrop suggests that he’s hoping the insane ticket prices drop as showtime approaches and apparently they do. “Oops, only five thousand now”, he says to his company and by all accounts he sees that sum, equivalent to about 47,000 kroner, as affordable because suddenly he disappears and never returns.
Crushing the dream
The match itself – which is shown on numerous screens on our roof terrace – is not quite what the excited congregation hopes for. The Knicks – maybe a little taken by the turned-up atmosphere in their hometown – do indeed come back from a really terrible start and have the de facto lead with 64-57 at halftime.
Then it’s close to the evening’s most frequently used work tool – yes, the pink mic! — meet the same fate as hapless Spurs fans in Bryant Park, from where significant commotion is reported, because then our new, violently enraptured friends don’t just want to scream into it. They get so into it that they are about to tear it to pieces (which should be evident in a video right here).
But then the Spurs take over the show again and despite a late home push in the final minute, they finally make sure to crush the Knicks-in-four dream with a 115-111 victory.
As the final whistle sounds, the temperature on Rutherford Terrace drops abruptly. The chants fall silent, the beer taps are turned off, no one wants to say either one or the other into any microphones. But violence like the one in Bryant Park does not break out. Not even when it is announced that Trump’s motorcade is again expected to pass around the corner and that we are therefore not allowed to leave the premises does the mood become particularly sour. Instead, the young men gas up, promise each other to meet at the same address before game number four on Wednesday and begin massing a new phrase in the late evening:
– Knicks in five!
