Knicks in 5! And 5 Stats That Capture NYC’s Orange-and-Blue Fever

BANG, BANG — and it’s Knicks in five!

The New York Knicks secured their first NBA championship since 1973 late Saturday, after beating the San Antonio Spurs in Texas in Game 5 of the best-of-7 finals, 94-90. 

Their victory sent fans into a state of exhilaration following an epic postseason run that brought New Yorkers together across the five boroughs.

The Knicks are now the first NBA team ever to take home both the league title and the trophy for the in-season NBA Cup tournament, established in 2023. 

And they’ve broken plenty of other postseason records for fans to be proud of:

• 271-point combined margin of victory across all playoff games through the Eastern Conference Finals — the highest for any team heading into the Finals 
• 13-game playoff winning streak — the second-longest ever in the NBA’s recorded history
• 29-point comeback in Game 4 of the Finals — the biggest comeback in Finals history 

New Yorkers have a few numbers of their own to show for their love of their home team.

Below are five categories of data The City Reporter was able to collect and crunch during the Finals. Bing Bong! 

1) We’re on a high — and so are noise complaints during and immediately after the games.

We’re loud and we’re outside — but not everyone’s a fan. Noise complaints increased by 31% on average on game days during the Finals compared to the daily average before the NBA playoffs. 

While complaints generally start to dip at 10:30 p.m. on an average day, that’s actually when they started to crescendo on nights when the Knicks faced off against the Spurs.

Those gripes have lasted past midnight. Case in point: There were just as many complaints at 1:30 a.m. after Game 2 as when complaints usually peak at 10:30 p.m. on an average day.

2) Knicks in four … songs that blew up

There’s a debate among Knicks fans over which song best represents the team and its success — so we sought out the numbers.

The team’s iconic “Go NY Go” jingle, written and composed for the 1993-94 season and remixed in 2012, has experienced a 2,700% increase in streams on Spotify, according to the company.

But what about the team’s unofficial anthem? There is one runaway winner.

“New York” by Ja Rule, featuring Fat Joe and Jadakiss, is experiencing a major surge on Spotify, with streams 825% above average during the Finals.

Two other emblematic songs have had moderate boosts: Streams for Frank Sinatra’s “Theme from New York, New York,” and “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys are up 280% and 110%, respectively, on the platform.

3) Fans clearly hung around Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.

If you’ve seen those viral videos of Knicks fans celebrating in subway cars, we have a hunch where they have come from. 

While the MTA has not yet released subway ridership data since Game 1, the figures available show a spike in people entering the Penn Station subway stop in the hour after the game ended.

That’s the opposite of what usually happens, as average ridership at the stop so far this year steadily declines past 11 p.m.

4) While the Knicks were busy with their gentleman’s sweep, the sanitation department was busy with street sweeps.

The Department of Sanitation collected around 4,500 pounds of additional street debris following Games 1, 2 and 4, according to spokesperson Joshua Goodman.

That number nearly doubled for Game 3 — the Knicks’ first home game in the Finals — after which sanitation crews cleaned up 7,500 pounds of trash from the street.

5) New Yorkers held it in.

Knicks fans are so dedicated that many of them weren’t taking bathroom breaks during Game 4.

On the night of the game, the city’s demand for water steadily declined after 8:30 p.m., around tipoff time, according to data from the Department of Environmental Protection. It spiked briefly around half time,  before steadily declining throughout the Knicks’ historic 29-point comeback.

Water demand declined about 32% from start to finish, but spiked more than 11% in the seven minutes after the Knicks locked in their third Finals win — amounting to roughly 368,697 additional flushes.

“As the city collectively held its breath waiting for the Knicks to pull off the miraculous win,” an agency spokesperson said, “it also held its bladder!”

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