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<p>As New York prepares to host the World Cup, the city is instead awash in Knicks blue and orange, reflecting a deep love for the gritty, unifying team chasing a historic NBA Finals victory.</p>
<p>The Knicks took a commanding 2-0 lead on Friday in the best of seven series against the San Antonio Spurs, and now the action shifts to the Big Apple for games three and four.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Knicks, this is New York at its very best right now,&#8221; said John Patrick Walsh, 65, who comes from a family of fans.</p>
<p>&#8220;Everybody&#8217;s a Knicks fan together. It&#8217;s a huge family, it&#8217;s all love,&#8221; Walsh, a voice actor, told AFP near Madison Square Garden, the home of the Knicks. </p>
<p>The streets around the Manhattan venue have become a rallying point for thousands of fans to cheer on their team, as celebrity superfans including Spike Lee, Timothee Chalamet and Ben Stiller applaud courtside.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very energetic, very chaotic,&#8221; said Melanie Mendoza, a waitress at the Bourbon and Branch, a bar not far from the iconic Garden that is fully decked out in the team&#8217;s colors.</p>
<p>&#8220;Even if you don&#8217;t know anything about basketball, you kind of get into that atmosphere, that vibe. People go crazy, basically.&#8221;</p>
<p>Outdoor watch parties around Madison Square Garden were initially banned during the NBA playoffs after multiple arrests during raucous celebrations, but will take place for the rest of the finals. </p>
<ul>
<li>&#8216;The city&#8217;s game&#8217; &#8211;</li>
</ul>
<p>After more than 50 years without a title and decades of false starts, the Knicks&#8217; rebirth is fueling a rare level of citywide enthusiasm.</p>
<p>Sports sociologist Jay Coakley, of the University of Colorado, noted that basketball &#8220;is a fast game, so it represents kind of the pace of city life, especially New York City life.&#8221;</p>
<p>For him, that explains why so many support the Knicks despite other New York sports teams like the Yankees (baseball) or the Giants (American football) having far more success.</p>
<p>Coakley also noted that the Knicks offer a sense of belonging for New York&#8217;s vast immigrant population, as they join other residents to back the team. </p>
<p>Amy Bass, a sports studies professor at Manhattanville University, said that New York&#8217;s urban landscape just fits with basketball.</p>
<p>&#8220;All anyone needs to play basketball is a ball and a hoop, a surface that you can dribble on, and New York City has an awful lot of that kind of space,&#8221; she said. </p>
<p>&#8220;It is the city&#8217;s game, from Harlem to the Village.&#8221;</p>
<ul>
<li>Common language &#8211;</li>
</ul>
<p>The Knicks have drawn on their turbulent history to project an image of resilience &#8212; similar to how New Yorkers like to see themselves. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, when they won their only two NBA titles, the Knicks were known as a &#8220;blue-collar, hard-working, tough-minded team,&#8221; according to Adam Criblez, author of a book on the squad.</p>
<p>&#8220;Not that the other organizations didn&#8217;t, but the Knicks just captured the imagination,&#8221; said Criblez. </p>
<p>The team&#8217;s roller-coaster run this season, with many dramatic wins secured in the final seconds, has reinforced that image.</p>
<p>Bass noted that the Knicks have become a unifying force in a city plagued by huge social and economic inequalities. </p>
<p>&#8220;The city can be lonely, the city can be hard,&#8221; she said. </p>
<p>&#8220;In a moment where social media and AI and politics create islands, this is something that feels organic, a sharing of language, of goals.&#8221;</p>
<p>rh/pel/bjt/sst</p>

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