It was the swoosh heard round the world. Or, at least in the five boroughs and across the bridges and tunnels, and then on social media shortly after. I’m not talking about the Knicks' win last Saturday night after five games against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. I’m talking about the win a few days prior on Wednesday when, after being down nearly 30 points, the team that hadn’t won a championship since 1973 threw a three-pointer with 1.2 seconds left in the game only to miss it, but then see it tipped-in courtesy of OG Anunoby — a player whose name, yes, I learned recently. The crowd, as they say, went wild. I know because I was among them.
I wasn’t, however, among them a few days later when they won the title. In fact, I was competing in a championship of my own: the battle against my immune system and my eyelids while watching the game from a couch in Long Island with my parents and brother.
Let’s rewind, starting with a disclaimer: I don’t watch sports. Aside from the occasional baseball game in the summer to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while scarfing a hotdog, or hockey game in the winter where I ALWAYS forget how cold it is in the arena (cause, duh, ice), I’m mostly into sports when there’s an entertainer involved (Whitney singing the National Anthem, Taylor cheering from the crowds, Bad Bunny marrying a couple during halftime, etc.) or when it’s an international event like the Olympics or the World Cup, etc. And even with those, I’m not going to wake at 2 a.m. for a match or medal ceremony.
Still, my allegiance will always be to the home team — Oceanside/Long Island, New York/U.S.A. or Paris/France — while maintaining the moniker Sideline Sara. This tracks, considering I was captain of Varsity Cheerleading in High School despite never knowing what “first and ten” meant or the difference between a technical and a flagrant foul. Still don’t. But I was (am!) really coordinated and excel at keeping things, well, cheerful.
Sports fan or not, there was no escaping Knicks fever last week, and truth be told, I wanted to be part of the action. In fact, when I learned Game Four was the same night I’d booked a reservation at a new restaurant with a friend who was visiting from out of town, I moved it earlier so we could be among the fans lining the sidewalks, watching the game as it was projected onto a building. After nearly a decade in Paris, as a born-again New Yorker who learned that the last time we’d made the finals was when I was in H.S., aka the last time I could rattle off Knicks’ players’ names (Ewing, Starks, etc.) I felt inherently invested.
So that night, we made our way from Bushwick to Williamsburg to Fort Greene and, eventually, Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy, where I live, passing crowds donning orange nails and blue hats craning their necks to catch every dunk, miss, foul, and free throw.
It wasn’t looking good at halftime, but we stayed out because we miraculously found a seat at a bar on my block that was playing the game with sound. It was after 11 p.m. at this point; we’d been out all day, having seen a matinee, gone to a gallery, AND eaten a big meal — aka participated in more “me” activities. We were POOPED.
And then. AND THEN. The unbelievable happened. The thing they make movies about happened. The thing that made even Larry David smile happened. We won, and it was so freakin’ epic. Like, can’t-believe-what-we-just-witnessed epic, is-this-real-life? epic. Those of us who stuck it out at the bar and on the streets and who were actually paying attention went ballistic. We hugged strangers. We high-fived the guy out walking his dog. We took blurry videos and shared external phone batteries. Just full-on NYC camaraderie. I swear if someone had seen a rat they’d have fed it a fry.
The next day, I woke up with a scratchy throat. I chalked it up to the screaming and yelling and went about my day, which included commuting to the office in Queens and attending an event back in Manhattan that I bought a $118 ticket to weeks ago because I thought “I should.” (It was a Jewish “social” of sorts, and I am now officially done with those.) Needless to say, my throat got worse, and I felt crappy. I began a round of Dr. Shen’s YIN CHIAO’s herbal pills (thanks, Anna!) and stayed the course.
I felt slightly better on Friday, but it was still festering. (Those pills definitely thwart whatever’s there from becoming a full-blown something, but your body is still a bit like ‘WTF?’) Needless to say, by the time Saturday came around and I saw the weather — 88 degrees with a chance of peacefully falling asleep on the bow of my parents’ boat — I decided to head out to Long Island to lay low, recoup, and work on my tan. The boat ride led to a nap, which led to some reading, which led to a BBQ, which led to a delightful shower, which led to me putting on my orange and blue ’fit because I am nothing if not appropriately dressed and on theme…only to remain on the couch in the ’burbs.
To be sure, there was some overthinking in the decision. The Knicks were up three games to one, so if they won this game, it was over. Written on the sidewalks. Etched into the brownstones. Reflected from the skyscrapers. They’d be champions, and New Yorkers would, without a doubt, celebrate appropriately (and inappropriately). But…there was always the chance they’d lose, and we’d have another game (or two) on the horizon where I’d hopefully feel better and be up for mingling with the masses.
Since I am a well-adjusted, almost-48-year-old, I decided to make peace with the fact that I’d experienced something special on Wednesday and was where I needed to be on Saturday: comfortably on a couch, still in New York, rooting for the home team, from my hometown with my homies.
And while I may have battled with my eyelids and taken mini powernaps during timeouts, I did at least catch the winning basket and subsequently see all the videos and memes and footage from the city — my new old home city! — some 25 miles to the West.
Sure, it stung a little not to be there, catching fireworks from my balcony or hugging some random fan in a Brunson jersey. But wherever any of us were when it happened, those of us in New York, especially, collectively experienced this historic moment just by being New Yorkers, full stop. By texting “!!!!” to everyone we know from a 917 or 646 or 516 or 718 or 212 number. By eating orange and blue bagels, orange and blue “black-and-white” and rainbow cookies, and orange and blue glazed donuts brought to us by neighbors from across the hall. By purchasing “LGK” charm bracelets from kids on the street. By waiting in lines for merch. By being targeted on Instagram for merch. By buying orange wine and giggling at the irony. By being tempted by royal blue pants at Anthro.
The blue icing on the King Kullen cake was that in the days that followed, I read take after take and watched video after video — from Jimmy Fallon, who hosted the starting line-up on the Tonight Show, to a video that brought me to tears made by someone my sister knows (see Watchable below) — and each one solidified my choice to chill rather than amplified my FoMo. But none more than Glynnis MacNicol, who seems to always get it right. On her wonderful Substack, Good Decisions , she wrote:
“To be a real New Yorker is simply to thrive on being human, with all the messiness and weirdness and challenges that come with it, whether or not you’re actually here in this actual city, or even want to be.”
For years, I lived in Paris and told people New York would always be home. The past couple of weeks reminded me why. Home isn’t a place you prove. (And there’s been a lot of “Who’s a real New Yorker?!” talk lately—especially after J.Lo ruffled some feathers on Kareem Rahma’s Subway Takes.) Home — and New York, especially — is a place you participate in. A place you feel.
Millions of New Yorkers felt it from a million different vantage points: from packed bars and crowded sidewalks, from fire escapes and living room couches, from hospital waiting rooms and restaurant passes and delayed subway cars. Some were screaming in the streets. Some were refreshing group texts. Some, like me, were fighting off a weird pre-summer cold and occasionally nodding off during commercial breaks and intermittently eating mint chocolate chip ice cream.
The point wasn’t where we watched. The point was that we cared.
Maybe that’s why the city has felt so electric. For a few weeks, we were all looking in the same direction. In a moment when life often feels fragmented, individualized, divided, and algorithmically curated, there was something wonderfully old-fashioned about this shared obsession — especially one that wasn’t rooted in politics, religion, or any of the other weighty subjects that tend to separate us. Sports are a business, sure, and serious for those with actual money in the game. But for the rest of us, they’re mostly just an excuse to gather, cheer, and occasionally high-five a stranger.
So no, I wasn’t on Fulton or outside MSG when the final buzzer sounded or even running out to my balcony in Brooklyn. I wasn’t climbing lampposts (as if) or dodging confetti cannons (more likely) or singing with bus drivers. But I was surrounded by family, wearing orange and blue, cheering for the home team. That was New York enough. That was human enough.
…whether to go to the Knicks parade [editor’s note: I didn’t go — but saw a school bus getting in on the action, and watched the parade from the subway on the way to the office!]
French Friday
French Friday, Vol 8: A Café in SoHo
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Jun 12
French Friday is a series for Francophiles and/or anyone with an opinion and good taste by moi, a former almost-Parisienne for nine years, and other almost-or-actual-Frenchies that know their ‘oof’ from their ‘bof.’ The goal? To rate venues outside France on their Frenchness. Plus, an ‘en plus’ section with like-minded recommendations in France itself. On y va!
“Biology isn’t destiny, and behavior is learned more than inherited.” On one man’s daughter becoming his son. | Mark Healy for GQ
Seth Rogen gives a good interview. That laugh, tho. | New York Times Magazine
Ruminations on the meaning of apologies. | What if it all works out?
A doctor’s advice: learn how and when to ‘wait and see.’ | Cup of Jo
What treasures do people’s trash really reveal? | The Atlantic
When a devoted son lies for the sake of legacy. | Vulture
There have been some really beautiful clips in the aftermath of the Knicks’ NBA Finals win, but the three below, including Mayor Mamdani’s speech at the parade yesterday, were especially beautiful. And then there was Michelle Obama’s eloquent speech about her husband, our former (and best) President, as they opened the Obama Presidential Center yesterday. La classe.
It’s prom season, which means…town cars? Ubers? I don’t know about you, but back in the ’90s, nothing said prom more than renting a limo to take you and your friends from “pre-prom” to actual prom to the after-party and who knows where else. (In our case, it was The City to pop into a club followed by an overnight all the way out east to a very shabby, not-chic motel.) But think about it: When was the last time you saw a stretch limousine?
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