knicksblog: outside

sunrise, sunset

Fort Greene, May 28

Things feel bad, winter isn’t cold so much as interminable, and suddenly the city is in bloom, enough off-balance Jalen Brunson floaters have caromed, improbably, through Eastern Conference nets to propel the Knicks through the second round, the first time in a quarter-century. The court’s too slick, or else the sneakers are too grippy, Jayson Tatum’s leg shatters, Kristaps Porzingis has Long COVID, his Turkish hairplugs have metastasized across his Latvian brain. Guys are swilling brown liquor in the middle of Seventh Avenue, climbing on top of Chevy Tahoes, yanking Timothée Chalamet from his limousine (haven’t seen any of dude’s movies, who told LaGuardia High kids they could wear Timbs). We are, quite literally, outside.

Courtside tickets sell for $62,000 apiece. Latrell Sprewell poses for a photo with Kylie Jenner, each feigning familiarity with the other’s work. To unblock traffic and appease the unruly masses, the city stages official Chase-sponsored “watch parties” in variously public spaces: Central Park, Radio City, and Ground Zero, for some reason. When the series moves to Indianapolis for Game Three, the watch party is inside Madison Square Garden. The $10 entrance fee goes to charity; speculators resell the tickets for $600 on StubHub. Beyoncé’s five-night Meadowlands engagement coincides perfectly with the Conference Finals, every tri-state boyfriend needs a scheduling assistant.

The outdoor events are for the people: free, first-come-first-served, relatively COVID-safe. Downtown, a screen has been erected beneath the Oculus’s outstretched wings. It is history’s most storied stretch of sidewalk, rivaled only by the Great Wall, the Camino de Santiago, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 9/11 at your back, Occupy Wall Street to the aft, OG Anunoby shooting free throws in HD brought to you by Chase. A police barrier runs parallel to Fulton Street, dividing official admits from the lingerers brown-bagging tall boys. Platoons of NYPD officers pretend not to care when Aaron Nesmith wets another thirty-footer. Not exactly a Berlin Wall situation — the view’s fine on both sides, everyone clad in orange and blue.

Fulton Center, May 23

It is quaint, even affirming, to inhabit such an uncontentious male space. Here are the things men lack, so I’m told: hobbies, fellowship, the ability to make small-talk with strangers. Guys who haven’t read the West Village Girls article, guys who have read it and model its antithesis, fighting the performative battle against third-wave Sex and the City apostles. Any resentment is firmly, if temporarily, contained, lives traversing a three-dimensional plot, intersecting for a rebooted Pacers rivalry. You live in the same megalopolis and watch the same seven guys play basketball a few nights a week — friendships are founded on much less. You speak I-95 patois when summoned, a language that’s half-extinct, half belched up by the internet. The cure to the male loneliness epidemic is Mitch Robinson.

The Central Park watch parties are feats of acrobatic production, DJ booth and concession stands installed overnight. The congregation is a modern anomaly, incited by genuine fandom as opposed to individual performers, stats, or FanDuel spreads. Thousands of men cheering on a team coached by a Connecticut volcel, a grimacing ascetic with a vestigial French surname. He draws up plays for Jalen Brunson, a generational point guard and generational void of charisma. Brunson is sculpted from the same beige, midwestern clay as Derek Jeter, a market correction for Jordan and Kobe’s sociopathy. No quotes or quips, smiling but never laughing — he went to Villanova, as did Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, and the pope.

Central Park, May 27

Metaphoric enough? The Knicks are falling short like old times. The city is sterile, suffocating, everyone from Brownsville to Chelsea dressed like it’s 1998 and John Starks is about to embark upon a cursed farewell tour through Golden State, Chicago, and Utah. The future is dysfunction, pettiness, Jordan Hill drafted one pick before DeMar DeRozan, native New Yorkers priced out in five years, investment bankers ten years after that.

It’s 1999, your cousin’s First Communion, and dozens of in-laws — Catholics and Knicks fans of variegated complexion, Uncle Somebody-Or-Other — have assembled in a New Jersey living room for the Game Five finale. The room erupts when Allan Houston’s jumper sinks home, sighs contentedly when Clarence Weatherspoon’s rims out. Now it’s 2003, the NBA has expanded the opening round to a best-of-seven format to ensure the eight seed can’t win again, Weatherspoon has signed a typically bloated free-agent contract with the Knicks. After a January matinee you catch him walking, alone, down 31st Street, he is smaller in person, you ask for an autograph, he shakes his pitbull head and peels off in an Escalade.

It’s 2011, Arab Spring, we didn’t start the fire, Carmelo Anthony forces a trade even though he was already coming in free agency. He disbands an overachieving Knicks roster, freeing minutes for Jared Jeffries and Roger Mason Jr. — guys who’ve rotted on the bench all season — just in time to get pummeled by the Celtics. Now it’s 2012, you’re finishing college, no one can find a job, it’s this silent terror, the sort you’ll revisit wistfully, Linsanity a distant memory, Steve Francis releases a song that sounds like Ja Rule.

It’s 2025 in a city that markets nostalgia, that can only market nostalgia, because there’s no future besides rising rents and rising seas, no one coming for us. What would winning even look like? Mikal Bridges launches into the air for a midrange jump shot and invariably lands six feet further from the hoop. He is shying from contact, avoiding scuffles, eluding injury — better for longevity, even if it deprives him of certain thrills. Half the time it goes in anyway.