And happy to have a dear friend and the owner of the New York Knicks, Mr. Jim Dolan, coming by the studio. Jim, good to see you. You obviously know Chris over there. And Chris, how you doing today? You doing okay?
Uh, you know, a little anxious, but I'm okay.
Before we get into all the stuff happening today, I want to take you back to our very first show, January 5th, 2026. You were kind enough to be our first guest. And I said to you back then, should we expect a big trade this year? Is Giannis coming here? What are your thoughts about this specific Knicks team and the fact we basically ran it back from last year?
With a new head coach and Mike Brown, and you said don't expect anything major. This team's good enough to win a championship, and now here we are game four with a 2-1 lead. Your thoughts on what's transpired over the last six months, and more specifically the last month and a half.
Um, well, you know, I think it's what I said it was.
Write it down there. There we go. You got it.
I got one right. Yeah, you know, look, Leon and I believe the team was good enough last year. And we were fortunately, I think, proving it right. And I expect to win tonight.
Being as if my predictions here come true, we're going to win tonight. We're going to win the finals.
Now you're talking. All right, let's get into a couple things before I get to the watch party. And you know this frozen zone now around the Garden, which we saw for Monday night. I have to ask you, as the owner of the Knicks, your thoughts on the officiating in games two and three. And were you disappointed that the league did not retroactively give Wembanyama the flagrant one for the way he manhandled Jalen Brunson?
Yeah. Okay. So I'm a governor of the NBA, right? And I'm restricted and bound by the rules of the NBA, of which there are a lot. Okay.
So there's little that I can say. I will say if you read the cover of the New York Post today, I think they got it right.
Um, which hopefully won't get me in trouble. But look, in the end, it's not who we play and it's not the officiating. It's how we play. If the team that comes out on the floor tonight, the Knicks team that we know and love, if they come out, there's nothing that can stop them. Not missed calls, not 7-foot-4 aliens. Nothing will stop them if they play their game. I believe in these guys. I believed in them when I was here the first time. And everybody who's hearing should believe in them, too, because they can do it. And I think in fairness to what happened in game three on Monday night, the reality is that it's the worst game they played in a month and a half. They were a little sloppy. They didn't shoot as well as they've been shooting. And during that 13-game win streak, this reminded me of game two against Atlanta. They just had a bad game. Now, we could talk about the officials. I think it's a smaller part of it, but I think to a man, the Knicks would tell you, the players would tell you, that they didn't play up to their standard.
No, they didn't. They would tell you they didn't play the game they wanted to play. Bingo, right? The important part of that is that they know they can play that game. They know how to pull themselves together and play the kind of game that we saw in game three in Atlanta that we were up. I'm not predicting we're going to win by 40 points tonight.
Well, it's also not supposed to be easy to win a championship.
No. And San Antonio is not an easy opponent. No, they are not. So if our guys come out and play the game that they know they can play and they know how to play, we will win this game and we will win the series.
There you go. Talking to Jim Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and of course Madison Square Garden. Monday night, I think we all accepted the fact, well, not everybody loved it, that President Trump was going to be in attendance, and because he is the leader of the free world and there have been assassination attempts on his life throughout his presidency, there was going to be extra security. And I think we accepted, while we didn't love the fact that New York City was shut down from 29th to 35th going north and south and obviously 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue going west and east. But nobody expected that to happen tonight because the president is not in the building. I assume you like the rest of us were not expecting to have blockades around those same streets like we knew was going to happen on Monday night. Is that fair? You have an easier chance of getting into Area 51 today than you do into Madison Square Garden. When did you find out that that decision had been made? And was it the mayor's office or NYPD or both of them combined?
For that's really important to say, right? We love the NYPD. We know the captains, we know the chiefs. They can handle this. They don't need this. And if you ask them and they were able to answer unfettered, they would tell you they can handle this. It's really the mayor's office. I cannot explain their decisions on this, but it makes absolutely no sense at all. And the real reason that I decided to call you up this afternoon to say, 'Look, I want to come down,' is because I know there's a lot of people who are in their cars right now headed down to the Garden and to the Midtown area. And I'm just telling you, as much time as you've allotted, you have not allotted enough time. The restrictions being put on this area, I mean, like I said, you would think we were guarding Fort Knox.
Well, we are guarding an alien, but yeah, it's incredible. Even if you come by train or subway, they're not letting you up. They're going to push you outside of the forbidden zone and make you come through magnetometers. And you're going to have to show that you have a reason to be there. This is all designed around stopping people from celebrating around Madison Square Garden. That's what this is about.
Why would the mayor's office not want people to do what they've done without any major incident? There's been a couple of things happen.
Well, there was what happened in Brian Park, but Brian Park was not our party. Brian Park was the mayor's party. Now, why people acted up at the mayor's party, I don't know. But that could be it. But that's not Madison Square Garden. We've had tens of thousands of people celebrating outside of Madison Square Garden, and it's been relatively peaceful.
I said they've been a handful of small incidents during the watch parties when the playoffs started. Nothing beyond like again, misdemeanor here, someone messes with a car there. The Brian Park thing was totally different. What I'm trying to figure out is, when the mayor's office tells your team and your executives and yourself, 'Hey, we're going to keep the policy in place from Monday night,' you guys have successfully had indoor watch parties at the Garden and Radio City. You've had outdoor watch parties at every home game prior to Monday night without any major incident. Why would they now think that your team and the police force that covers that part of New York City couldn't suddenly handle it again tonight? I don't know. But you can only conjecture. I don't think that they have faith in their own police force. We know they know what they're doing, but honestly, the mayor's office, and I'm sorry the commissioner too, do not have the experience to do this right.
That's Mayor Adams and Jessica Tisch, who's the police commissioner.
I mean, they have never managed anything like this before. It's like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich coming out the sides. That's part of what we're seeing: a lot of fear from the mayor's office, a lot of anxiety. They're sitting there trying to say, 'Well, we're big Knicks fans.' But this isn't... They're not Knicks fans.
He called the Garden a stadium.
How big a Knicks fan is he? He's not a Knicks fan. So let's get to the watch party. The mayor's office did respond to the second press release that you guys put out today. You had one out last night. You put a second one out today. And the mayor's office put out their own press release. They claim, for people catching up, they're having a thousand people max. The mayor's trying to claim, 'Hey, I did you a solid. I saved the watch party, max a thousand people. It's a ticketed event now.' And his office's claim was that in the permit you guys requested for the watch party outside of the Garden, which we've had throughout the postseason, your permit request was for 500 to a thousand people. And I said, 'That can't be right because every watch party you've had, you've had damn near 10,000 people.'
Don't get these things confused. Go ahead.
This is not really about a watch party. We put up two fairly decent-sized screens along the side. I don't think you can get much more than a thousand or so people to see the screen. This is about celebrating the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the mecca of basketball. This is what the mayor's office and the commissioner's office are trying to kill. They don't want the celebration. I can't tell you why they don't want it. I'm not sure they know why they don't want it. But they clearly don't want it. And they're turning the entire area... and we should note this, it's basically the same area from when the president was here.
29th to 35th, north and south, 6th Avenue to 8th Avenue, which is a big area.
I mean, if you're driving in right now, you can't park by Madison Square Garden. You'll have to park across town, walk, accept that you'll go through a magnetometer, get stopped, have your ticket verified. This will create a huge backup all around Area 51.
It's going to take you over an hour to get into the building. That's what you're saying.
Once you stop your car, listen to me, folks, no less than an hour to get from there into the building. I hope you don't have any problems along the way. From the last game, we had people walking from Madison and Fifth Avenue all the way down with tickets in hand because they couldn't get any closer. This won't be any better.
When that happened in game three, and we said we understood why the president's there, did you have a discussion with them about moving forward? Did they tell you this is how we're doing it for game three, expect the same, or did you completely get taken off guard?
They're very coy about that. They say, 'We'll see. We'll see.' But look, let's talk about game three. The Secret Service didn't demand this stuff.
It was NYPD and really the commissioner's office.
It would have made more sense if it was the Secret Service, because we could accept that. But no, this was the commissioner's plan all along. She just used the president coming as an excuse to set it up.
But what about all the previous watch parties? They went off without incident.
They prove that we can gather and enjoy ourselves without causing any problem. Absolutely. Look, this is New Yorkers, Knicks fans. No matter what the commissioner does, they're going to celebrate.
Correct. They want to do it by the Garden. There's a lot of love around the Garden when we win.
Jim, it's the biggest sporting event in New York City this century. That's real. The Yankees in the World Series in '09, they won, but they've won 27 championships. The Giants in '11 didn't have many home games. This game tonight, with a chance to take a 3-1 lead, is the most important sporting event in this city this century. That's not hyperbole. You would think it would be embraced by those in charge. No.
Common sense. I don't know what to say. I mostly wanted to come down and tell all the folks listening, because a lot of people listen, get there early. If you're planning on coming and going to, for instance, one of the bars around the Garden, you're pretty much not going to be able to. They're going to check for reservation. My son went to a place a block and a half away from the Garden for Monday night's game. The rank and file cops are doing their jobs. Don't be mad at them. They have orders to fulfill. I want to be clear about that. My son and his friends tried to go to a local bar to get the vibe, and the police officer said, 'Prove that you have a reservation.' He said, 'How am I going to prove it? I called the place and got a table.' They eventually got through. But they're serious. A guy called, the owner of Bravo Pizza on 30th, blocked from the Garden. He had an average night but normally does 3x business when the Knicks are in town, and didn't because of these draconian measures. These restaurants all hired extra staff and they're getting crushed. It's not fair. All I would say to the mayor and the commissioner is, believe in New Yorkers. We're the greatest city in the world with the greatest citizens and fans. They are not going to turn this into something bad.
So let me ask you an obvious question: Has Jessica Tisch's office or Mayor Adams's office reached out to you, or did they just make their announcement and say, 'Live with it'?
No, they talked to us, but they kind of dictate to us. It's very political. Before game three, it was the president coming. We kept saying it's not the president coming. Oh, no, it's the president coming. And it was the Secret Service? They went to the Secret Service and said, 'Did you ask for this?' They said no. But you know, look, I can't fix the city. That's the mayor's job. All I can say is that we love Knicks fans and they should have the opportunity to celebrate this. I wish I could tell you it's going to happen again next year. I don't know.
Well, let's just win this year first and then worry about the dynasty and the repeat next year. We've been waiting a long time for this moment. Don't take it away from New Yorkers. Don't treat it like this. It's not right. Let people in. Trust your own police department that they can handle it. Then trust the fans themselves. They're enthusiastic.
So do you think if this series, knock on wood, ends in five, but if it went to a sixth game at Madison Square Garden, do you think we should expect the same thing?
We got the permit for the watch party, which was littered with restrictions. No more than 999 people, everybody has to do this and that. We're not even putting up the screens because we're not about 999 people. We're about millions of people.
So tonight you're not going to have the screens up for the watch party?
No, we're not going to have a screen up. I'm not...
Well, it's kind of not even your party, right? Isn't the mayor claiming it's his party because he decided to bless it? It's a weird situation.
He gave us the gift of allowing us to screen 999 people and tell 20,000 no. Thank you very much. We do have a staff member, Anthony, checking, and tickets are sold? A thousand tickets out of something.
Who's in charge of the tickets? No, there are no tickets sold. There are no tickets for this event. We issued no tickets. Our hope was that the mayor and the commissioner would change their mind, and we'd put the screens up. They clearly haven't. It's almost 5:00.
So you're going tonight to the watch party? You're not seeing the game. I was under the impression you could have a ticket, that there were going to be a thousand tickets.
Okay. So if you're going to the watch party, you're not watching anything. If you're just hanging out waiting for 9, there's a lot more than 900 people listening. Which ones would get tickets and which ones wouldn't? That's not what the watch parties are. They're an extension of the celebration of the Knicks. I wish I could get everybody into Madison Square Garden, but we can't. Watch parties were an idea to help people. Many other cities do it successfully. We're the best city in the world, so we can do it. I know our NYPD guys can handle this. This is really out of the mayor's office. He needs to change his mind. I doubt he'll do it for tonight, but there's game five on Saturday. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
Are you opening the Garden up for an indoor watch party?
There's a concert at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, and the World Cup starts tomorrow. Should we win tonight, which we will, and then we win in San Antonio, you think anybody's going to want to come and celebrate at Madison Square Garden?
