A woman dragging a roller suitcase across Seventh Avenue in Manhattan stopped in front of a wild sight Wednesday night: hundreds of people, jumping up and down, shouting and cheering in unison. She asked a group of police officers what was going on.
“The Knicks,” one of the officers said.
“Oh,” she responded, before wading through the euphoric crowd in the direction of Penn Station.
Signs of springtime in New York are everywhere. Cherry blossoms in Brooklyn, sunbathers in Central Park and, for the last few years, after decades of relative hibernation, the Knicks in the playoffs.
“This is phenomenal,” said Ann Powell, a business executive from Mount Vernon, N.Y., who attended the team’s free viewing party outside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. “The vibe is just electric. Nobody believed we had a chance — none of the media, the experts, nobody but us. We always believe. But I’m also kind of in shock.”
Ms. Powell’s surprise was the product of the Knicks’ stunning, last-minute, come-from-behind victory over the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the second round of the N.B.A. playoffs. It followed an equally unexpected, last-minute, come-from-behind win in Game 1, both of them in Boston, as the Knicks took control of the best-of-seven series. They are the first team in N.B.A. history to complete a 20-point comeback in consecutive playoff games.
Hundreds of Knicks fans watched both games in the 33rd Street plaza outside Madison Square Garden, the Knicks’ home arena. With a large screen and a fenced-in area, it resembled a pop-up, outdoor concert. Another smaller screen, facing uptown, allowed overflow fans to see the action, too. A D.J. amped up the crowd and M.S.G. ushers and security guards, along with police officers, patrolled the area.
For most of both games against the Celtics, fans were relatively quiet because the Celtics, the defending champions and heavy favorites, jumped out to large leads. But the Knicks never gave up, winning in improbable fashion. And though the players were in another state, their cheers — echoing off the surrounding canyon of steel and glass — could be heard blocks away in every direction.
Many people picked the Celtics to win the title again. The Knicks adjusted their roster this season, adding Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges to a core of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and OG Anunoby, but nobody gave them much of a chance to win a championship. In the regular season, the Knicks won one more game than last year’s total of 50. But it was enough for a devoted fan base that has had only close calls to celebrate since 1973, the last time the team won the championship. Last year, the Knicks enchanted New York City and the entire metropolitan region with their playoff run.
It is happening again, because no local team captivates New York quite like the Knicks. The region has divided loyalties in professional baseball, football, soccer and hockey, but in basketball the Knicks are pre-eminent. Brooklyn is home to the Nets and the Liberty, who won their first W.N.B.A. title last year. But neither team commands the multigenerational loyalty generated by the Knicks.
“There is a certain love that New York has for the Knicks,” said Travis Bowers, a Knicks fan and entrepreneur from the Soundview section of the Bronx, who said he goes by TB WhoBetta. “The whole city gets behind them. Everything we go through, the hardships, the expenses — we all know what New Yorkers go through. But we are tough, and that’s why we love these Knicks, because they are like us.”
Along with the legions of regular-citizen fans who can’t afford the hundreds of dollars necessary to get into a Knicks game, a long list of celebrities also attach their devotion to the Knicks, including Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Edie Falco, Pete Davidson, Ben Stiller, John McEnroe and a host of current and former professional athletes who sit courtside at home games. Politicians, who may have distanced themselves from the team during its fallow years, are on the bandwagon, too.
But the ordinary New Yorkers like Adrian Lloyd, a financial adviser from Long Island, are the kinds of loyal fans who pushed deep into the outdoor pen to watch Wednesday’s Game 2. In the third quarter, though, Mr. Lloyd said he needed a break from the pit, and before the Knicks’ latest impossible comeback had really started, he wandered across the street for a breather.
“It’s like when the Yankees are winning, except that’s all the way up in the Bronx,” he said. “This is centralized, right here in the middle of the city.”
As the last seconds ticked down and Bridges ended the game with a steal at the buzzer, as he had in Game 1, the crowd on 33rd Street erupted, their hands thrust into the air, cellphone cameras glowing against the night sky. The celebratory crowd, consisting mostly of young men, migrated toward Seventh Avenue alternating chants — “Knicks in four!” and invectives aimed at the Celtics — hopeful that as the series shifts to New York for Game 3 on Saturday, the Knicks will proceed to a four-game sweep.
“There is so much energy right now,” beamed Ms. Powell, the fan from Mount Vernon. “The crowd just grew and grew. But it’s all positive. It’s all about the Knicks.”
David Waldstein writes about the greater New York region with an emphasis on sports.
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