Alex Jakubowski watched the New York Knicks erase another San Antonio Spurs lead Wednesday night, cherished the historic 29-point comeback victory and then climbed into bed. Before Jakubowski fell asleep, a joke about the game popped into his head. He typed it into his phone and shared it on X.

The 23-year-old Knicks fan from West Hartford, Conn., initially thought the post was a “throwaway tweet.” But the joke — a riff on the NBA Finals matchup written in the voice of a “Seinfeld” joke, accompanied by a courtside photo of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David together at Game 4 — resonated far beyond the walls of Jakubowski’s bedroom.

The Spurs know how to TAKE the lead, they just don’t know how to HOLD the lead. And that’s really the most important part of the lead: the holding pic.twitter.com/3JABgJ7DFt

— Alex (@ajak1033) June 11, 2026

By the time Jakubowski woke up Thursday morning, his post had been viewed more than 600,000 times on X and had already spread across other social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Reddit. His “throwaway” joke was well on its way to becoming one of the defining memes of the 2026 NBA Finals.

The post refers almost word-for-word to a scene from Season 3 of Seinfeld’s eponymous 1990s sitcom, in which Jerry is trying to get a mid-sized rental car. Throughout the show’s nine-season run, Seinfeld had many similar conversations with the character George Costanza, who was based on “Seinfeld” co-creator David. And David kept their signature comedic sensibility alive long after “Seinfeld” concluded in 1998 through his HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Paired with the image of the two famous New York comedians, the post was perfectly timed to go viral.

Family and friends reached out to Jakubowski as the post spread. The nonprofit employee even took breaks from work on Thursday to keep up with the buzz.

“They see my name and they’re like, ‘Holy crap, that’s Alex,’” Jakubowski told The Athletic.

As of Saturday afternoon, Jakubowski’s post had accrued 8.7 million views on X. He had 660 followers before Game 4, and now he has more than 1,750.

Jakubowski said he watched “Curb Your Enthusiasm” during halftime of Game 4 because the Knicks were trailing by 27 points. He considers himself “one of the biggest ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ fans in the world,” he said, and watches the shows every day.

When David appeared on “The Rich Eisen Show” on Friday, Eisen asked him about the viral post.

“I saw that,” David said. “I love that. I thought that was so funny.”

David’s response was short, but it brought Jakubowski joy — enough to share the video on X with a post saying that David’s acknowledgment left him feeling “speechless.” That video had 1.4 million views as of Saturday afternoon.

“He’s my hero, and to see him acknowledge me was just pure joy,” Jakubowski said. “It was just unbelievable. … Never in a million years would I have thought that Larry David would see something that I wrote and that any of this would ever happen.”