I cannot believe that in 2026, after everything: after two nights of Spurs fans getting jumped, after taxis getting flipped in Midtown, after a cop took a glass bottle to the face, the dominant discourse in New York sports media is still some variation of they just care so much. Fifty-six people taken into custody. Ten NYPD officers injured. The city is already triangulating toward: well, it was a historic comeback. As if the size of OG Anunoby’s put-back is a relevant legal defense for whoever chucked an egg at Victor Wembanyama’s head.
Victor Wembanyama is 22 years old. He put up 24 points and 13 rebounds in a Finals loss on the road, in a building that wanted him dead, and when he got back to his hotel and someone threw an egg at him — hit him in the head — his response was to say it “doesn’t bother me” and remind everyone that “we can’t forget it’s a game.” That is the 22-year-old French kid. That is the person your city decided to egg.
The basketball has been genuinely great this series. I want to say that clearly before I get into it, because this isn’t about the sport. Wembanyama is one of the most compelling players any of us will watch in our lifetimes, and the Knicks, down 29, coming back to win on a buzzer put-back, gave the city a moment worth celebrating. It deserved the noise. It did not deserve this.
The passion defense has always been a lie, and New York has always gotten away with telling it.
Here is what the passion defense requires you to believe: that there is a straight line between loving your team and assaulting strangers. That the intensity of your fandom is so pure and so overwhelming that it occasionally, regrettably, expresses itself as violence against people wearing the wrong jersey. Game 3 alone saw more than two dozen arrests as Knicks fans attacked Spurs supporters, ripping jerseys off their backs. This isn’t spontaneous overflow. This is a culture that has been permitted to metastasize by decades of radio hosts calling it “heart.”
I worked in housing policy for 18 months. I recognize this grift. When an institution keeps doing something harmful and the response is always “that’s just how it is here,” you’re not describing a culture. You’re defending one. New York sports media has been defending this one for a long time.
What makes this specific moment different, the thing the passion defense absolutely cannot survive, is the contrast. ESPN’s Mike Greenberg called the fans “a disgrace,” saying “You’re not disgracing the city, you’re disgracing yourself and everyone that knows you.” The mayor condemned it. And Ben Stiller, the celebrity superfan, part of the A-list celebrity presence at MSG for years, posted publicly calling out his own fans after Game 3. When Ben Stiller breaks ranks, you have lost the argument completely.
Mayor Mamdani has been consistent about it throughout this series:
https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/2063346324662350115
What the mayor said is correct and also insufficient, because it treats this as an aberration. This isn’t the first time a player got something thrown at him by fans who decided their emotions gave them the right to make someone else’s body a target. The pattern is documented. The indulgence is documented. What’s new is that the target this time is the most gracious, measured, thoughtful person in the entire story: a 22-year-old who responded to getting egged with diplomatic patience. The city still can’t fully bring itself to sit with the shame of it.
Wembanyama said: “My thoughts of course are that we can’t forget it’s a game. We’re just playing a game out there. I am all for passion, but with the respect of each other. It’s unacceptable.”
He said it’s unacceptable. Calmly, clearly, no grievance in his voice. Just a statement of fact. The 22-year-old from France had to explain basic civic behavior to a city of eight million adults.
Nick disagrees with me on this, says it’s a small minority and the city deserves credit for the celebration. Nick is wrong. You don’t get to point at Ben Stiller and Mike Greenberg and the mayor all saying the same thing and call it a small-minority problem. When the celebrity superfan is publicly calling out the fan base, the minority defense is gone.
New York will probably win this championship. The series is 3-1, and the night someone threw eggs at Wembanyama outside his hotel will be a footnote by the parade. The passion defense will survive into the next postseason completely intact. Some radio host will dust it off. Some columnist will write about the fire in the city’s belly. And somewhere, a 22-year-old who just wanted to go back to his hotel will remember the egg, and he’ll be too composed to say anything about it, and that restraint will get called dignity instead of what it actually is: a young man extending more grace than New York has ever earned.
