“Real fans waited 30 plus years for it,” Anthony Martinez from New Jersey said. “Hopefully he doesn’t show up for game four, and you know we get to enjoy it outside.”
Yishai Berkowitz, another New Jerseyan, seemed conflicted about it all. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to work,” he said. “The president should be able to come…to have a watch.”
The outcry, he suggested, was partly manufactured. “People today are much more internet focused,” Berkowitz said, “because if they were really fans, they would be here anyway.”
Monique Cuebas from the Bronx was just happy to be a part of the moment—to catch a glimpse of Trump, even from a distance. “I didn’t see him,” she said, “but I saw his shape,” noting that anything involving billionaires and millionaires provides her a sense of “hype.” Cuebas suggested Trump’s real motivation for attending the game was that “he likes the attention,” but that didn’t bother her.
Trump certainly drew attention—much more so than Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who sat in the nosebleeds with state lawmakers and didn’t figure into the broadcast, unlike former mayor Michael Bloomberg, who looked a bit shaken up after Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado crashed into his courtside seat. When the national anthem played just before tip-off and the jumbotron inside the arena flashed to the president, standing in his suite alongside MAGA luminaries including Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Dan Scavino. (Trump’s granddaughter, Kai, and Dolan were also among the crew.) A source in the arena described it to me as about 65 percent full of boos, and the reaction rang out across the five boroughs of Trump’s hometown: at a Greenpoint, Brooklyn beer hall, the president’s face was met with deafening boos and middle fingers. According to an attendee seated near Trump, the murmur among the crowd was that he had planned to leave after halftime but stayed because the game was too good. (The Spurs eked out a tight win, guaranteeing that none of the “Knicks in four” chants will come to fruition.)
Trump sat for the next portion of the game ensconced in a bulletproof glass box resembling the Popemobile. It was a fleeting entanglement with his hometown—NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Monday that the Plaza33 party will resume for game four on Wednesday—but one that provoked no shortage of emotion. Another onlooker outside the arena regaled me with his tale of seeing Trump’s “white big arm” inside his car, which he took as further proof of the president’s New York bona fides.
“He’s from Jamaica, Queens,” the Knicks fan said. “We all know his body of work.”
