I DM'd Timothée Chalamet in Cleveland and I Have Zero Regrets

I have bought flights to Atlanta, Cleveland, and San Antonio in the last six weeks. I have DM'd a celebrity. Mark's Apple Watch thinks he's dying. We are both fine. We are better than fine. Zero regrets.

Is it male menopause? Is he having an affair? Mark has been shedding tears, yelling at the TV, doom scrolling through sports commentary at midnight, clapping so hard his Apple Watch keeps sending fall detection alerts, and planning last-minute 24-hour trips that have collectively cost more than my entire summer European budget.

Nope. It's just the life of a diehard Knicks fan in June 2026. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

My dad was a Knicks fan so I grew up one by default. When I met Mark we leveled up across the board, all sports, all in. Over the past 20 years NBA games have become my favorite live sporting event, and I say that as someone with a genuine soft spot for men's club rugby so that is saying something. Since moving to Charleston in 2018 we have made the trip back to New York or hit road games whenever we could. The last few years we committed to at least one Knicks and one Giants game per season.

Then April happened and "one game" went completely out the window.

We're Giants fans too. We have had season tickets at MetLife since it opened. We went to the Indy Super Bowl in 2012 and that was the last time either of us felt this. When this run started turning into something real, I didn't need convincing. I was the one buying the flights. Atlanta. Cleveland. San Antonio last night.

I would do it again tomorrow. But just not next week because it's $11,000 to get inside the door at MSG.

We Were There

Mark and I went to Game 4 in Atlanta. We went to Game 4 in Cleveland. And we were in San Antonio last night for Game 2.

I want to talk about the thing nobody writes about, which is what it's like to be a fan in someone else's building. Because it doesn't start at the arena. It starts at the airport.

You get on a plane in Charleston in your jersey and the silent nods begin. You spot someone across the gate in orange and blue and you don't need to say a word. You land in whatever city you're in and suddenly you're shouting "Knicks in 4" and "let's go Knicks" across a crowded terminal at complete strangers and they are shouting back. You check into the hotel and within ten minutes you are swapping Instagrams and cell phone numbers with people you have never met, trading New York sports war stories, bonding over decades of pain like old friends who grew up on the same block. The suffering is the common language and everybody speaks it fluently.

And then you walk into the arena. And everything gets quiet inside you, even though you could cut the energy in that building with a knife and it is so loud you can feel it in your chest. You are cheering and high fiving and hugging complete strangers. Every orange and blue shirt is a new friend. Every nod is a smile. Every fist bump is a whole conversation.

There's something that happens when you travel to another city for a game that you just cannot replicate watching from home. You walk into a building that is completely foreign to you. The sightlines are different, the smells are different, the energy of the crowd is different. And you get to feel what it's like to be in someone else's home. That's actually really cool. It makes you appreciate what a home arena does for a team, and it makes you appreciate the players who can walk into someone else's house and just take it.

This Knicks run has created more of those moments than anything I can remember.

The Numbers Are Absurd

They are just a different kind of team.

What Spike Said

The celebrities alone tell you everything you need to know about the weight of this moment.

Spike Lee, who was 13 years old at the Willis Reed game in 1970, called this group "a team of destiny, heart, drive" and compared them to Willis, DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, and Dick Barnett. That is not a small thing to say.

Tracy Morgan was on camera in tears when the Knicks punched their ticket to the Finals. One of the funniest people alive, sobbing. Fat Joe tried to sit courtside in Cleveland for Game 4 and the Cavaliers denied at least 10 courtside seats to Knicks fans once they figured out who they were rooting for. He still showed up. Timothée Chalamet skipped the Met Gala to watch a playoff game and then flew to San Antonio for Game 2 of the Finals along with Ben Stiller, John Turturro, Tracy Morgan, and Fat Joe, turning the Frost Bank Center into a mini MSG for a night.

I'll be honest with you. I was so fired up in Cleveland that I actually DM'd Timothée and Kylie Jenner on Instagram to see where they were hanging out after the game. They did not share my "smile at strangers and make new random friends" energy and obviously did not respond to me. But that's what these games do to you. They make you think anything is possible.

And even Bill Simmons, who is about the last person you would expect to say something nice about the Knicks, went on his podcast and said this is probably the best time to be a Knicks fan since 1994, "where you feel, holy s--t, we have a real chance." When Bill Simmons is rooting for you, you are doing something right.

Then there's the mayor. Mayor Mamdani signed an actual executive order temporarily repealing bedtimes in New York City so kids could stay up and watch the Finals, writing: "As Mayor, you're forced to make many difficult decisions. This was not one of them. Go Knicks." When the mayor is signing executive orders about bedtime, you are living in a moment.

What This Is Costing the NBA

The Knicks' sweeps of the 76ers and Cavaliers eliminated potential home games at Madison Square Garden and took away roughly $29 million in potential revenue for MSG Sports alone. The NBA as a whole is watching this team be so dominant that they are literally losing money on shortened series. The Knicks' postseason has already generated an estimated $202 million in economic activity for New York City, but the city projects that number could have reached $465 million if all possible home games in the Finals are played.

The NBA needs this team to win, but slowly. And the Knicks are out here sweeping people and winning 13 straight and completely ignoring that memo. I love it.

What New York City Did

This is the part that got me. I am a full blown sentimentalist. I am the yankee in the lowcountry who still complains about the delis and the bagels and the pizza and probably always will. When New York goes, I go. And what happened in this city during this run is something I have never seen.

The city temporarily co-named streets across Manhattan after every single Knicks player. Jalen Brunson Boulevard at West 11th Street and Seventh Avenue. Karl-Anthony Towns Square at West 32nd Street. Josh Hart Street at West 3rd.

The MTA transformed subway station entrances with orange-and-blue railings and replaced traditional globe lights with basketball-themed designs. When the Knicks swept Cleveland, fans climbed traffic lights, Radio City Music Hall erupted in Knicks chants, and people carried brooms through Manhattan streets. Watch party tickets inside Madison Square Garden to watch the road games on the Jumbotron sold out in under an hour at $10 each.

What This Is Really About

Mark has waited his whole life for this. Two and a half decades of bad Knicks teams, holding onto the Patrick Ewing memories and hoping. And now he's watching Jalen Brunson come back from a knee tweak in the first quarter of Game 1 and drop 30 points, 13 of them in the fourth quarter, including a pull-up jumper with 30 seconds left to seal the win.

Two more wins to go. Games 3 and 4 are at Madison Square Garden. And whatever happens, this run has already done something to New York City that felt impossible two months ago. It reminded eight and a half million people that they are on the same team.

If you see another Knicks fan this week, anywhere, in any city, you know what to do.

Fist bump. No context needed.

Knicks in 4. LFG.

Frequently Asked Questions