Why the Knicks, disrespected but clawing back, touched a raw nerve in New York City and ultimately the country

This is about a game, about overcoming adversity, about beating the odds, and about a city that is at once great and glamorous, yet oppressively hard to live in.

But the Knicks, in winning their , are not just a New York story. Their teamwork, discipline and dedication became a national story, a Cinderella story. They touched hearts in a very cynical culture. 

Imagine if politicians acted like this. If they put aside their hyper-partisanship and ideological agendas for the good of the country. If their default setting was cooperation and compromise rather than grabbing credit and demonizing opponents. Okay, youre right. Its too hard to imagine. 

Its not about how many points Game 5, when he single-handedly carried the Knicks to victory). Its about how he was long dismissed as weak and undersized (by NBA standards). The 6-foot-2 Brunson, who wasnt drafted until the second round, had something to prove. Think of all the folks who feel underrated or misunderstood at their job, and how deeply they want to be recognized for their value.

Its about the greatest city on earth, which is also the most frustrating city on earth. I once wrote that live under conditions that would cause riots in any other city, and I havent changed that view. Everybody is squeezed together. Its absurdly overcrowded. 

As a guy from Brooklyn, who played in a league and in the asphalt jungle, where if you lost you had to sit on the sidelines for a good long time, I dont pretend to be unbiased. We played touch football in the street and had to stop every time a car came. That was before we got on the grass field because someone cut a hole in the chain-link fence. Very Noo Yawk. 

Every day more than 4 million people pack themselves into subways, mostly at the bottom of deep tunnels, and at rush hours must stand through stop and go service. Homelessness is a problem both in the subways and on the streets.

Many folks live in tiny apartments, with small dens having to double as bedrooms, and pay mightily for the privilege.

And yet, as street crowds gathered across the five boroughs, they broke into a rendition of the Frank Sinatra song: “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York…”

Other cities, of course, have similar problems, so New York is just urban America writ large: Taller buildings, dirtier streets, piled-up garbage, more panhandlers, struggling schools, odious smells.

And the traffic is horrendous. Only is worse. Dont show me any surveys, I know. Try getting into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Thats why authorities slapped a $9 entrance fee on anyone driving into Manhattan below 60th Street. And parking: Fugeddaboudit! 

Unfortunately, some thugs turned violent after the Knicks victory. There were , four people stabbed and a 17-year-old boy shot in the foot. Thats the dark side of New York, which coexists with places like Broadway and Fifth Avenue.

When I was based in New York, the biggest stories involved . Race riots. Murders. The Central Park Five. The Zodiac Killer. Al Sharpton got stabbed. 

Things are nowhere near as bad these days in the Apple and other cities, but there are still plenty of neighborhoods where you cross the street to avoid trouble. 

When I was leaving in 1990 to return to Washington, I wrote a magazine piece with . The hotel-builders tabloid exploits, breathlessly chronicled by the New York Post — this was even before “The Apprentice” – symbolized a culture in which readers thrive on celebrity gossip to distract them from the daily dreariness of their lives. He always called me back. I figured, well, Ill never have to deal with this guy again.

I was at Game 7 of the 1970 when Willis Reed limped onto the court for their first championship. I watched on TV in 1973 when the team, now with Earl the Pearl, won again. Little did I know there would be a half-century wait till the next one, so many years of so many awful teams.  

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