The last place I expected to hear people talking about the Knicks was the Tony Awards.
Yet there I was, interviewing Daniel Radcliffe on the red carpet and asking him about the energy in New York. Radcliffe, of course, knew I was talking about the Knicks’ playoff run (though maybe I shouldn’t say of course: I later asked Lorne Michaels the same question and it went right over his head).
The last time Radcliffe witnessed a major New York sports team win a championship was when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012. And he’s not alone — the entire city has been waiting that long. To put that in perspective, that was less than a year after the final “Harry Potter” film was released.
“And I’ve obviously never been in New York for the Knicks getting even close,” Radcliffe continued, “let alone doing this.”
The “obvious” comes from the fact that the Knicks last reached the playoffs 15 months before Radcliffe was cast as The Boy Who Lived. And their last championship? J.K. Rowling was even younger than Radcliffe was when he auditioned for Harry Potter.The drought only made this run more extraordinary. Every game in the Finals was defined by razor-thin margins. And the 29-point comeback in Game 4 that culminated with OG Anunoby’s thrilling tip-in will go down as, according to one of my closest friends and Yankees broadcaster Emmanuel Berbari, “The top two or three greatest moments in New York sports history.”
