The evening at Madison Square Garden began with a canceled party, a spat between New York City’s mayor and the owner of the arena, and many, many missed shots by the New York Knicks. In other words, it looked like yet another disappointing chapter for the team’s long-suffering fans.
But after the Knicks rallied to secure the biggest comeback win in N.B.A. finals history, the director Spike Lee danced on the court while the pop star Taylor Swift waved a Knicks towel in the air. On the nearby streets of Midtown Manhattan, roars filled the air and some revelers stood on cars, food carts and scaffolding.
The Knicks are now one win away from delivering basketball glory to a city starved for a championship. And the party is back on.
The day began ominously when James L. Dolan, the Knicks owner, escalated a dispute with Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
In a radio interview, he blamed Mr. Mamdani and the police commissioner, Jessica S. Tisch, for heightened security around the arena. He canceled a watch party outside the Garden, declining to use a permit granted by the city. And he defended President Trump, who had sat in the owner’s suite two nights earlier and was voraciously booed when he appeared on the video screen.
But in that same interview, Mr. Dolan promised victory in Game 4 Thursday night against the San Antonio Spurs, and in the finals.
When the Spurs jumped out to what seemed like an insurmountable lead, Mr. Dolan’s guarantee looked like a grave miscalculation.
The Spurs couldn’t miss. The Knicks couldn’t stop them. Neither a video appearance from Ms. Swift, wearing a jacket that read “Stevie Knicks,” nor a halftime performance from the Wu-Tang Clan seemed to brighten the crowd’s mood.
But in the second half, fans roared with each moment that looked even remotely optimistic. Outside the arena, police wearing riot gear clashed with some New Yorkers who showed up to a party that didn’t technically exist.
“The vibe is just hard to describe,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said after the game. “The energy in the crowd had a lot to do with our comeback.”
The madness crested in the final seconds as the Knicks tried to erase a one-point deficit. After what appeared to be the team’s final shot attempt bounced off the rim, Knicks forward OG Anunoby soared to tip it into the basket.
The Spurs’ final attempt failed. Outside the arena, a city jumped for joy.
Along Avenue A in the East Village, traffic was partially stopped near East 13th Street as revelers chanted “Knicks in five!” and “Go New York, Go New York, Go!,” the Knicks’ anthem. Passing garbage trucks and buses blared their horns, cheered on by hundreds of rapturous fans.
“As someone who’s not from New York, this is insane,” Cara O’Donnell, a 24-year-old from Dublin, said. She photographed a throng of fans at an intersection near the Garden with an old-school film camera. Some people climbed a truck in celebration.
Next to the Union Street subway stop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, people who had gathered outside Antojitos Dominican restaurant craned their necks to watch the bar’s TV from the sidewalk as the Knicks gained on the Spurs in the game’s last minutes.
When the final buzzer sounded, the explosion of energy from the crowd could be heard underground in the station. “Just like that!” a man cheered.
For some fans at the Garden, total victory felt near.
The Journey song “Don’t Stop Believin’” blared in the arena minutes after the final horn. A security guard directed fans toward the stairwell with a simple, confident farewell.
“Good night. See you at the parade.”
Kaja Andric, Tania Ganguli, Andrew Keh, Jesse McKinley, Bayliss Wagner and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting.
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