I spent an inordinate amount of time on Reddit during the NBA finals, clicking open comment threads to get a sense of how the nation’s basketball fans were feeling. Each forum and its community served a unique purpose. I turned to r/billsimmons for group media criticism about the Ringer Podcast Network’s various postgame recap shows; r/NBATalk for debate among supporters of various franchises; r/chalametsecrets for snippy comments on Timothee’s courtside looks; r/knicks for hype, mostly personal testimony from long-suffering fans and AI-generated graphics that put OG Anunoby’s face on the Statue of Liberty. On Friday, June 12, r/knicks flooded with a link to a WhatsApp chat for fans who would be in San Antonio for what we all hoped would be the team’s first championship in fifty-three years. I joined, hopeful that the internet might transform into something real.
“Hi! I’m in Austin for work and will drive down tomorrow if anyone needs a ride,” I wrote in the chat. Within minutes, a New York area code messaged me. It was a man named Steve who made every possible effort to not be creepy. He and his two friends were “birthright” Knicks fans now in their early forties, married with young children in Westchester, and offered to pay for gas and bring me anything I wanted from Austin’s famous Terry Black’s Barbeque. And so, the next day, around 1 PM, I arrived at the Hilton Austin Airport in my rented Chevrolet Equinox, just as Steve, Santiago, and Rocco rounded the corner, bedecked in royal blue and holding a brisket sandwich.
We set out on the I-35 south to San Antonio, falling into conversation that began with the Knicks but quickly spilled beyond the boundaries of sports. I learned about their families, jobs in construction and finance, ex-girlfriends from Staten Island (Santiago had a type), and feelings about leaving the city for the suburbs (it’s nice to see your child learn to walk in a yard, not a hallway, but wouldn’t it have been nice to celebrate Game 4 in the streets). Sports and personal lives blended as they told me about their children’s extracurricular activities, lamenting the cost of preprofessional training.
We talked about Mayor Zohran Mamdani for a moment, but it was clear that we had differing ideas about the prospect of democratic socialism in New York. The conversation turned back to the Knicks. “They are the ultimate city unifier,” either Santiago or Rocco said from the back seat. “If we started talking politics in the WhatsApp, all hell would break loose.”
Sporting events, from grand rituals like the Olympics to minor league baseball games, require audiences to interpret signs and symbols whether they like it or not. Everyone is a semiotician in the arena, where every gesture is scrutinized first by a panel of television “experts” and then by people on Reddit and X. To my carpool, the Knicks were a representation of the power of male friendship. As a trio of college buddies, they felt moved by Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges to show each other physical affection. I asked what they thought about the internet commentariat’s description of Karl-Anthony Towns as “zesty” and “soft.” “When I see him play, I don’t see that,” Rocco declared. Steve added that there was a certain toughness to KAT’s wide stance when he grabbed the ball in one hand and scanned the paint, looking for a creative pass or open path. The guys sounded like dance critics as they described the angular, jerky motions of Towns on a drive toward the basket.
Around 2:30 PM, we arrived in San Antonio, collectively feeling like we needed to see what the city was all about. A giant Texas flag with the Spurs’ logo in place of the star greeted us as we exited the highway, and fringed paper in the team’s fiesta colorway of pink, orange, and turquoise wrapped local infrastructure from lamp posts to pedestrian bridges. A young woman stood at a busy intersection twirling two signs in the shape of a cartoon alien and Victor Wembanyama’s face. We made the easy choice to visit the Alamo, San Antonio’s most famous landmark, before indulging in Knicks-mania.
In October 2025, the Alamo’s renovation plans were interrupted when the official Alamo X account posted:
Today, we honor Indigenous Peoples and their communities, recognizing their history at the Alamo. Opening in 2027, the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum will feature an Indigenous Peoples Gallery, celebrating the bands, clans and tribes that shaped the region. #IndigenousPeoplesDay.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick demanded that Kate Rogers, a historian and the CEO of the Alamo Foundation, resign. He cited the tweet, as well as Rogers’s dissertation, which objected to Texas laws that limit what teachers can say in the classroom and suggested the Alamo narrative might incorporate Indigenous perspectives and the history of slavery. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham piled on, arguing that “Woke has no place in the Alamo.” Rogers resigned, and the Alamo museum remains covered in scaffolding.
In place of an air-conditioned exhibition space, a series of temporary displays delineate the history of the Alamo from the Mission Period through early Texas Statehood. Lingering in front of the glorified posterboards, I met my first Knicks fan in situ. We exchanged an oddly guttural “Knicks in Five,” which sounded less like a coherent series of words than two animals of the same species recognizing each other in the wild. Now allied, we began to study the timelines before us together, and I shared what I knew about the wokeism controversy. “So then why does it still say Gulf of Mexico here?” she replied, pointing to a graphic mapping the route of the Texian armies during the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836. “Dumbasses,” she said, then offered another “Knicks in Five” and nodded goodbye.
The facade of the Alamo remains visible for photo ops, and we walked over to the entrance so that I could take a portrait of Steve, Santiago, and Rocco. I thought I was hallucinating as we approached; between the visible heat waves was a blurry mass of orange and blue, a swarm of nearly fifty people chanting “Knicks in Five! Knicks in Five!” An older man hobbled over to me with his phone and asked that I film the group. After our short film wrapped, people exchanged farewells (“Knicks in Five”) and moved onto their ultimate stop before game time.
The main event for the big WhatsApp group was a pregame at a bar in the Lavaca neighborhood of south San Antonio. On the way, we drove down a street of Victorian cottages dotted with James Talarico lawn signs. Steve asked what I thought about him. “I worry that they’ll get him with that old quote he has, ‘God is nonbinary,’” I replied. “I don’t know, God could have no gender,” Steve considered. I remembered that when Karl-Anthony Towns referenced “the woman above” in his post–Game 1 interview, referring to his late mother, I had thought he was saying God is a woman. “No, literally, I thought that too,” said Rocco. “I was kind of into it.”
Our destination was McIntyre’s Southtown, an expansive sports bar with wraparound patio and three walls of televisions. As we entered, strangers emerged to give us fist bumps and mutter “Knicks in Five.” The three-thousand-square-foot indoor area was standing room only, and a hundred more people spilled outside. There were maybe twelve women at this event.
It was kind of beautiful to watch people arrive alone and immediately fall into conversation. A typical meet-cute revolved around jerseys. “I love that edition, it’s Ewing ’91-’92, right?” “Hell yeah, brother. What’s your name, where are you from?” Everyone I asked had found the meetup through Reddit or the WhatsApp group (via Reddit). I asked a few people if Reddit was their preferred social media platform. Almost everyone said yes, commenting on the way its format encouraged conversation over X’s “toxic” algorithm.
In line at the bar, I met a Spurs fan and apologized for the takeover. “Go Spurs Go!” signage and a merch table out front suggested the bar was typically Spurs territory, but today only a handful of fans dared to fraternize with the Knicks mob. I offered to buy him a drink, thinking it would be good karma for the Knicks. He was a psychologist at the San Antonio VA who was working to increase bilingual services, which are surprisingly unavailable in south Texas, he said. The Joint Base San Antonio employs eighty thousand people across the Army and Air Force and serves as a training camp for aspiring pilots. My new friend explained to me that many of his patients looked down on therapy as something for the weak. As a solution, he integrated mental health care into regular check-ups, “like sneaking vegetables into pasta sauce.” When our margaritas appeared, we shook hands and said good luck to each other.
I kept my eyes peeled for a Staten Islander named Anthony, who had been prolifically messaging the WhatsApp about “snow” and “thotianas.” Earlier in the day, Anthony had been threatening to carry a carton of eggs around, pelting any San Antonio fan who dared say “Spurs in Seven.” Fellow WhatsApp group members avoided engaging with him in the chat, but in person at McIntyre’s, we were all gossiping about his antics. Steve, originally from Staten Island, complained that he was making his people look bad. Anthony’s profile photo showed a white guy with a mustache and sunglasses; about 20 percent of the crowd fit this description.
An algebra teacher from Long Island approached me, eager to share a poem he had written. “All my students, it’s all AI all the time, and I feel the pull myself, but it’s so important we still do things that are human, that are artistic,” he said with unvarnished earnestness, turning his phone screen, open to the Notes app, toward me. “You have my permission to use this in your article, just make sure to include my name.”
“OG’s our savior
Reckless city behavior
Under pressure we thrive
Knicks in five.”
—Alex Nantsis
I searched around for Steve, Santiago, and Rocco, noticing that it was nearing 6 PM, when the arena doors opened. According to a rumor floating around McIntyre’s, Ubers were scarce and cancelling on Knicks fans trying to get to the game. I didn’t have a ticket, but I wanted to drop the guys off soon so that I could make it to a watch party in time for tip-off.
The trio was with a Spurs fan, also named Santiago, around a high-top table. “Juliana, meet our new friend,” Steve gestured. I shook new Santiago’s hand and introduced myself. “Please, Juliana, if you can do anything for me, vote red, vote red,” he begged, grabbing my hand. “Enough with this California and New York bullshit. Here we have guns, we have dip, we have tobacco, what more could you want?”
We found Alex, the poet–math teacher, in the parking lot, looking for an Uber that wasn’t coming. He jumped in our car, and we set out for the Frost Bank Center. I dropped my new friends off at the arena, a gray structure that blended into the surrounding parking lots. We waved goodbye, and they disappeared into the security line. Police on horseback wearing cowboy hats and actual spurs directed me away from the crowds, which added some Texas flair to the mundane act of sitting in traffic. As I waited to leave the complex, I began to comprehend just how many Knicks fans had made the journey to San Antonio. For every Wembanyama jersey that trudged past, there was a Brunson to counter.
A backup around New Braunfels foiled my plan to make it to the Knicks Fans in Austin watch party at the Dainty Dillo, another sprawling patio bar, this one overlooking the Colorado River. I had attended a Game 4 meetup there, and was charmed by the people, miniature hot dogs, and Zyn booth at the entrance. My hotel room television would have to do if I wanted to catch the opening moments of Game 5.
I watched Wembanyama block three shots within the game’s opening minutes and Towns go splat on the floor, tailbone first. Dylan Harper, the 20-year-old Spurs rookie who looks like he can bend the air when he elevates towards the rim, stalked Brunson’s every move and forced his way through layers of Knicks to score two seemingly impossible baskets in the first quarter. OG made a graceful three-pointer, and Brunson exhibited his usual talents, but the team was stuck ten points down. Watching selfies come in from the stands via WhatsApp, I thought of my friends at the game, and how painful it would be for them if the Knicks didn’t pull it together.
I’ve been in Austin looking at the personal papers of Spalding Gray, the actor and writer who cofounded the Wooster Group, most famous for autobiographical monologues which he presented while seated at a table with nothing but a notebook, tape recorder, and glass of water before him. My days have consisted of switching back and forth between his notebooks, where he journaled and outlined each work, and video recordings, in which you can see how he recalled personal memories and reflected upon that past in real-time. He never committed a script to memory, so every performance felt spontaneous and authentic, though at its core, the show was the same night after night. By repeating his stories, slightly different each time, Gray constituted himself through performance. At some point during the fourth quarter of the game, I realized I was watching the Knicks do the same.
First quarter, down by double digits; throughout the second and third, they struggled to close the gap but had made slow progress by tightening up their defense and hoping the offense would follow. By the fourth, I knew exactly what was going to happen at the end. I had seen this show, I knew who this team was.
With a little more than seven minutes left, Jalen Brunson ran past Stephon Castle, the Spurs’ regal, hyper-physical guard, and laid the ball into the hoop. He rotated his torso as he flew, watching his own basket fall. He landed out of bounds on two feet, absorbing the shock of his high-impact movements and casually returning to the court with a calm stride. The Knicks were now only six points down. Of course, one must remain stressed until the final buzzer, but it was too familiar for the outcome to be all that different than what we had seen before. The television on which I was watching the game lagged behind the real-time WhatsApp messages; a notification from the group announced the Knick’s victory about thirty seconds before I saw it myself.
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