Knicks fans young and old caught up in team's wild ride as team returns home for NBA Finals Game 3 vs. Spurs
Jake Epstein, a 22-year-old from Montauk, outside of Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Colin Stephenson
After winning the first two games in the NBA Finals in San Antonio last week, the Knicks enter Game 3 on Monday night at Madison Square Garden two wins away from capturing their first NBA title in 53 years.
Fans around New York can almost taste it.
Jake Epstein, a 22-year-old from Montauk, hadn’t even been born in 1999, the last time the Knicks played in the NBA Finals. But on Sunday, he sat on a folding chair outside the Garden, wearing a tuxedo and a Knicks baseball cap and saying the words “Jalen Brunson’’ over and over, with the goal of repeating the Knicks captain’s name 100,000 times.
“The fans that have gotten so emotionally invested, involved in it, and now you can’t get into any bar, you can’t go to Central Park, can’t even get into a watch party, because it’s all sold out,’’ said Epstein, who graduated from Hofstra last year. “And so I thought, ‘Do a live event . . . Just say ‘Jalen Brunson.’
“Because this is my way of cheering for the Knicks. I can’t get into a game right now, but I’ll just say ‘Jalen Brunson’ and hopefully the Knicks win and hopefully I get to go to the parade.’’
Ken Glass, 68, of Plainview, said he won’t go to the parade if the Knicks do win. (“I’m not a parade guy,’’ he said. “Never was.’’) But after watching the Knicks win titles in 1970 and ’73, he’s eager to see them win another one.
“I miss the Garden’s electricity,’’ Glass said. “It’s captivating. And when the Knicks are hot, and the Rangers . . . it’s very good for the soul as a longtime fan.’’
Glass and his childhood friend, Richard Spanbock, who grew up together in Roslyn, remembered going to the Garden to see the Knicks in the 1970s. Their fathers split four season tickets in the old orange seats; the dads would go to games during the week and let the boys go on the weekends.
With Spanbock’s older brother Paul in charge, Spanbock, Glass, and another friend took the train by themselves into the city to the games. But they had strict orders not to miss the early train home.
On one occasion, the boys called their parents to ask permission to stay at a game and catch a later train. They got permission but still had to run to catch the train after the game.
If the Knicks win, the biggest thrill Spanbock will get will be to see his son, Alex, 34, finally get a chance to watch one of the teams he roots for win a championship. Alex, like his father, roots for the Knicks, Islanders, Mets and Jets.
“My son has never seen any of his teams win,’’ Spanbock said. “When [the Knicks] won the [NBA] Cup, he was excited. And I said, ‘Listen, they’ve got to win the championship.’ And he is going out of his mind.’’
Spanbock and Glass agree that the current Knicks team, led by Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns and coached by Mike Brown, is a better team than the teams that lost in the Finals in 1994 and 1999.
“This team moves the ball quicker and more efficiently and probably has the best fourth-quarter general on the floor for the Knicks since Walt Frazier,’’ Glass said. “No doubt.’’
Glass said he likely will be going to The Main Event, a sports bar in Plainview, to watch the game. Spanbock, who now lives in Huntington, was asked if he might be able to go to Game 3 on Monday. Tickets are going for $10,000 or more on the secondary market.
“I looked,’’ he said, “but tickets are so expensive.’’
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
