TEXAS \u2014 In a state filled with hundreds of thousands of people cheering on the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals, there are hidden pockets of fans rooting for the New York Knicks.<\/p>\n
Both teams and their fan bases have waited years to return to the NBA Finals. For the Spurs and their fans, they\u2019ve been waiting since 2014.<\/p>\n
But for the Knicks and their fans, they have been waiting for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 1999,\u201d said Jack McDonald, a Texan now for 27 years, sporting gear from the East Coast team. \u201cI literally moved here about three months after the last time the Knicks played the Spurs in the finals.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, 10?\u201d said Marie Rubino, a Queens Village native, thinking on how old she was when the Knicks last played in the finals.<\/p>\n
Most of the now-Texan fans at the Game 1 Austin watch party on Wednesday were, as expected, from New York: Queens, Long Island, Staten Island, Westchester County and Manhattan, to name a few.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers, as well as natives from other states, have been moving to Texas year after year. According to the Texas Demographic Center, Texas ranked number one in growth from 2024 to 2025 compared to the other 49 states. New York takes the number two spot for states where people move from.<\/p>\n
Some of the fans at the watch party are fairly new, only living in Texas for a month or two. Others, like Evan Brot, have built deep roots after living in the Lone Star State for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cCame down 15 years ago for school \u2014 hook \u2018em \u2014 and haven\u2019t left because I love it down here,\u201d Brot said.<\/p>\n
The event mostly hosted Knicks fans, but one Spurs fan kept his ground and pride high.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being in enemy territory. man,\u201d said Ben Campbell. \u201cThat\u2019s my team, [and] we\u2019re going to win the championship this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Campbell\u2019s isolated support for the Spurs wasn\u2019t enough to push the Spurs to a victory, with the Knicks taking home a 105-95 win.<\/p>\n
Knicks fans say they\u2019re looking forward to getting four wins and taking the championship. No matter how long they live in Texas, they say, they\u2019ll never abandon their home team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s the Knicks, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s the Giants, New York Yankees, the Rangers,\u201d said Sarah Green. \u201cThat\u2019s what brings New York to Texas for me, is the sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I walked into a bar in New York where everybody is just super stoked, really excited and really loud, and that\u2019s something I miss about being in New York,\u201d Janel McCann said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 In a state filled with hundreds of thousands of people cheering on the San Antonio Spurs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99689,11101,5877,2025,7472,71978,9,11,10,12,86818,9416,9138,319,1777,99690,200],"class_list":["post-255901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-andres-rendon","tag-app-sports","tag-austin","tag-community-news","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news","tag-professional-basketball","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}