New Yorkers argue about everything: the best pizza, the best bagel, the best borough. Yankees fans won't sit next to Mets fans.
Giants and Jets fans share only a home state. But when the Knicks make a playoff run, the city becomes one big, loud family.
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That is happening now.
The Knicks are in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, opening Game 1 on Wednesday, June 3 against the San Antonio Spurs after sweeping Cleveland and winning 11 straight playoff games.
The city hasn't had a moment like this in 27 years.
A City Transformed
Mike Greenberg, host of ESPN's Get Up and a lifelong Knicks fan from Greenwich Village, says the team changes the entire atmosphere of the streets.
“You always feel like you’re in the biggest city in the world, like you are in the center of the universe.
And the Knicks are the one team that makes New York feel like a small town, because everyone is wearing their Knicks shirts and everyone is yelling ‘Go Knicks’ in the street,” Greenberg told USA Today Sports.
Greenberg has spent decades thinking about this.
In 2014, when Super Bowl XLVII was in New York, he noticed the buzz was confined to Midtown.
“The moment I went down to the Village to visit my parents, you would not have been aware the Super Bowl was in New York,” he said.
