The Joy of the Knicks Championship

**Matt Flegenheimer** (0:10)
Here's to Wemby. Wemby tries a three, puts it up, off the mark, and an over the rebound. It's over!

**SPEAKER_1** (0:15)
It's over!

**Matt Flegenheimer** (0:16)
Knick fans, this is not a dream.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:19)
Your long, long wait has ended.

**Matt Flegenheimer** (0:21)
Go ahead and cry after 53 years.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:24)
The Knicks are finally NBA champions once again.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:28)
Ernie Johnson on the ABC call at the end of Game 5 the other night. And we're going to end the show with one more thought about sort of the uniqueness of the celebration in the city after the Knicks won the championship Saturday night. And it's going to come from Matt Flegenheimer from the New York Times. He has a story out with this headline, Knicks give their city something new, impossible joy. Maybe for Knicks fans, never has a better headline been written. And we can take a few more phone calls. We did this at the beginning of the show a little bit, but particularly on this angle that he's bringing.
212-433-WNYC-433-9692, caller text. Hey, Matt, thanks for coming on with us. Do we have Matt?

**Matt Flegenheimer** (1:17)
Oh, hello, do you hear me?

**Brian Lehrer** (1:19)
Oh, did I say that was Ernie Johnson? That was Mike Breen, wasn't it? Of course, it was Mike Breen. Ernie was after all of that.
But here's what I really keyed in your story, that New York's big shared moments tend to be tragedies, 9-11, Sandy, COVID, and that this is almost disorienting because it's just good. That thought really brought me up short when I read it in your article because, yeah, what are those other things that have made seemingly any New Yorker make knowing eye contact with any other New Yorker? They were all those horrible things and this is the opposite.

**Matt Flegenheimer** (2:01)
Absolutely. It's really disorienting. It's almost a permission structure to experience that kind of joy in a way that, obviously, given the length of time between championships, a lot of Knicks fans didn't necessarily think they would see. But to have it be the city's game and to have so many people rowing in the same direction for reasons that are not inherently tragic, as you mentioned, in general, in a city this big, so little is felt universally, as we say in the piece.
Even other sports teams that are cherished in the city, Mets and Yankees, Jets and Giants, with respect to the Brooklyn Nets, there's really not a credible competitor to the Knicks in basketball. To see this team come back so many times as it did, I think there was an amazing line actually in the radio call from Tyler Murray, I think is the radio announcer for the Knicks at the final buzzer after the final buzzer, that it was a team that proved that no lead is too big and no guard is too small. I feel like that sensibility really appealed to the city and brought out something that we haven't seen a lot of in recent years, which is a collective joy at the same thing.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:18)
It's funny that you mentioned that call. I will admit that I was actually listening to a lot of that last game on the radio while watching the visual on the TV, because I like the radio announcer so much. Nothing against Mike Green, who's fabulous.

**Matt Flegenheimer** (3:33)
Mike Green is great, but they're fantastic.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:36)
And Monica McNaught, just awesome on the radio, and more personal to the Knicks fan, obviously being the New York broadcast instead of the national. Marvin in Brooklyn wants to share a little particular kind of love for Mr. Brunson. Hey Marvin, you're on WNYC.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:54)
Thank you for putting me on. And also just going back to a discussion you had a couple of weeks ago with the True New Yorker is a sustaining member of NYC.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:04)
Very nice of you, but go ahead.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:07)
I think what's under, and this is related, what's not getting enough publicity is the wonderful thing that Jalen did when he came to the Knicks. He forfeited $108 million in order to let the team have the resources to build what turned out to be this championship team. This self-sacrifice for the good of the team and for a larger purpose is so missing from our society. Paul Krugman has talked about Elon Musk being a Ponzi scheme. He made a trillion dollars.
Jalen is showing the value of not just doing things for yourself. And this is one of the things he should be a role model for children.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:57)