Spike Lee had barely slept. On Saturday night he’d climbed out of his seats and onto the court as soon as the final buzzer had officially sealed the miracle: the Knicks were NBA champs. Lee went on hugging and high fiving into the early morning. But why was he hanging around San Antonio? These were the New York Knicks. And he was Brooklyn’s Spike Lee. He had to get back home.
Spike Lee celebrates the Knicks’ Championship win in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.Chris Smith
Two weeks ago Lee had promised me that if the Knicks won the finals he would throw a block party in the neighborhood where he’d grown up and where his film company still has its office, Fort Greene. So here he was on Sunday afternoon, a few hours after flying back from Texas, still wearing the orange-and-blue pullover emblazoned with the words “Orange and Blue Skies” that he’d been wearing for the game, hunched over the right shoulder of DJ Evil Dee in the doorway of his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule, requesting Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” be blasted out to the hundreds of people dancing in the street.
Compared to some of the spectacles that had played out across New York City for the past two weeks, this was a sedate party. No merch for sale, no buses burning. On Thursday, there would be a ticker tape parade down Broadway, but that would be a mob scene. This was, literally and perfectly, a family affair: Spike’s seven-year-old next door neighbor, Ossian Wierenga, wearing a hand-painted “Knicks World Champions” t-shirt, was selling lemonade on the sidewalk under the watchful eyes of his parents; grandmothers were bouncing with their granddaughters to Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance.” A guy in a Latrell Sprewell jersey, carrying a fake boombox, was in a duet with a guy in a Jalen Brunson jersey, the Knicks generations coming together to trade verses on Biggie’s “Juicy.” The handful of cops were bopping to Michael Jackson. Even the guy in the Oklahoma City jersey was getting down. “Yeah, I know the Knicks won,” Maleek Mayers said with a laugh. “But the Spurs beat my Thunder, so I was pulling for the Knicks!”