One person bit a police officer and punched a second one after the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals. A second person was carrying a loaded gun.
Outside a watch party in Bryant Park on Monday, when the Spurs won Game 3, several men yanked trees from their roots and threw glass at police officers. One Spurs fan was beaten and had his jersey ripped off as he walked back to his hotel. When one New Yorker admonished fans who were shaking a street sign loose, they attacked him, too.
And on Wednesday, after the Knicks came back to win Game 4, someone threw garbage at Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs’ star, as he walked to a hotel.
The convulsions of violence have generated headlines, but for a city of more than eight million people, such episodes have been relatively spare. Still, they have revealed a certain frenetic energy beneath the glee and euphoria running through the city this week.
Raucous celebrations are as time-tested a tradition as organized sports themselves. In Philadelphia, the fandom is so passionate that the city has taken to greasing light poles before big games.
But these days in New York, where the Knicks have not had a run at the finals in almost three decades — let alone a title in 53 years — it feels like a pressure valve has been suddenly released, and the long-deferred elation of victory has exploded on streets and sidewalks.
The Police Department is, so far, relieved about what it has seen; there have been few serious injuries and only a few dozen arrests, mostly around Madison Square Garden, where thousands of fans have flocked. But the episodes have brought a growing public-safety challenge to the fore, as officers try to keep order in a moment when passion can tip into mayhem as swiftly as a buzzer-beater.
Fifty-six people were taken into custody on Wednesday night after the Knicks beat the Spurs in the last seconds of the game. People flooded the streets around the Garden, jumping on top of vehicles and damaging the windshields of four police vehicles, according to the police and videos posted on social media. Several fans pulled a taxi driver from his cab, injuring his arm, back and head.
Ed Davis, a former Boston police commissioner, who in his tenure saw three of the city’s four sports teams win championship titles, said officers can sense when elation turns to aggression.
Just after the victory, “everyone is laughing and screaming and having a good time,” he said. “Then, there is a lull in the crowd, and it’s almost like a mentality of what are we going to do next? That’s when the trouble starts.”
Over the past few weeks, the behavior among some Knicks fans has been so rowdy that the city briefly canceled watch parties outside Madison Square Garden before the finals. A day before Game 4, the actor Ben Stiller, a Knicks die hard, went on social media to implore New Yorkers to stay calm.
“Most people don’t intend to engage in vandalism or crowd violence,” said Karen Altendorf, an assistant professor of sociology at Bucknell University. But the collective nature of crowds leads some people to behave poorly because they think they are unlikely to be held individually accountable, she said.
“It’s much easier to get swept up than we know, realize or admit,” Ms. Altendorf said.
Adam Damico, a retired police detective, worked in Midtown in 1994, when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, and in 1999, when the Knicks last went to the finals.
When the Rangers won the Cup, elated fans filled Seventh Avenue, chanting as they marched to Times Square then back to the Garden, an almost dignified demonstration of jubilance, Mr. Damico said.
“We gave them Seventh Avenue,” he said, recalling how the police shut down the street to cars and let the fans hang out until 2 or 3 in the morning. “There was no vandalism. It was a very festive crowd.”
Other factors like alcohol use can exacerbate the chaos, experts said. And unlike in the 1990s, when there was no social media, many young fans today are looking for a viral moment and may be eager to produce provocative, or even violent, stunts in exchange for internet fame.
Outside Midtown Manhattan, the scene has been far tamer. Even the trash talk has been wholesome.
In Harlem, Brian Howell, 65, watched Game 1 on a 65-inch television perched on the back of a truck. Several other fans around his age were watching from beach chairs when a Spurs fan pulled up on his motorcycle.
“We’re going to make you feel like ’99 tonight,” the Spurs fan called out, referring to the finals in which the Spurs beat the Knicks in four games to one.
“I’ll talk to you in four games,” Mr. Howell shot back.
Crowds, and especially large gatherings of sports fans, tend to run emotional, said Fergus Neville, a senior lecturer at the University of St. Andrews Business School in Scotland. But that emotion is usually positive, with most people remaining peaceful, even when a smaller, marginalized minority might seek out conflict.
The trouble comes when law enforcement can’t distinguish between the two groups and acts indiscriminately toward the crowd, Mr. Neville said. From there, the tension can spread like wildfire.
“That’s where you get widespread disorder and escalation,” Mr. Neville said. “It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Mr. Davis, the former police commissioner, said Boston police officers learned it was better to allow fans to revel and keep the officers in riot gear out of sight, ready to be deployed only if necessary.
“There are times you just have to let it play out,” he said. “Sometimes the fighting would start because we were there.”
Despite the headaches, many officers are as anxious as the rest of the city to see the Knicks pull off a win on Saturday.
After the Knicks won Game 2, one officer assigned to the Garden looked over the crowd, grinning.
“I love this,” he said. “I’m getting paid to be here.”
Chelsia Rose Marcius, Nate Schweber and Miles G. Cohen contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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