Add The New York Post on Google It’s the Knick of crime.
Felony assaults bounced up more than 31% during nights when the New York Knicks played in the NBA Finals — even amid a drop in crime citywide, a new study found.
The rise in assaults on game nights mirrored how the Big Apple has struggled to block a stubborn increase in felony assaults, according to the midyear crime report from non-partisan policy journal Vital City.
The Knicks’ historic championship run consumed New York City over five games, including an electrifying Game 4 comeback in which the team erased a 29-point deficit and won with a miraculous tip-in by forward OG Anunoby.
On those nights, overall crime complaints fell 11.1% below normal at 9 p.m. — only to rebound 38.7% above average at 1 a.m. as the Knicks battled the San Antonio Spurs and ultimately won their first championship in 53 years, the study found.
“Conclusion: A city watching basketball is a city not doing much else (and committing less crime),” the report states.
“A city leaving bars and partying in the streets is another matter.”
The spike offered a natural “experiment” on the increase in felony assaults overall that’s bucked a citywide dip in other violent crime, the researchers wrote.
Every type of major crime except felony assault and rape fell during the first half of 2026, continuing a steady decline from a peak during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the study.
Murders and shootings were respectively down 12.9% and 11.3%, compared to the same point in last pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the analysis, which looked at crime stats over the first six months of 2026.
“By these two measures of serious violence, the city is now safer than it was before the pandemic,” the study states.
“But major crime is still 25% higher than it was pre-pandemic,” it said. “In other words, New York City has recovered from lethal violence, but it has not yet recovered from the rest.”
The increase in rapes came after the state broadened the crime’s legal definition to encompass the antiquated offense of “sodomy,” according to the study.
But the study noted that felonies such as robberies, burglaries and burglaries were trending in the right direction.
Meanwhile, felony assaults were up nearly 48% so far this year compared to the same point in 2019, the study found.
And the Knicks games during the Finals showed that felony assaults keep increasing even as other crimes stay flat, the analysis found.
Whether the Knicks won or lost made no difference, the study concluded.
“Perhaps the most convincing evidence that the games had an effect on violent crime was the fact that most of the increase was in Manhattan, where Madison Square Garden, the outdoor watch parties and many of the bars where people watched the games are located,” the study found.
“Felony assault was up 108.5% in Manhattan, 32% in Brooklyn, 26% on Staten Island and 10.8% in Queens; in the Bronx, it fell 0.8%.”
The study also found the five Finals games had 12 additional felony assaults per night.
“The city’s entire year-over-year increase in felony assault, across all six months and all 78 precincts, was 57,” the study states.
“Put differently, five basketball games moved the same quantity of violence that separates this year from last.”
An NYPD spokesperson pointed to more recent data showing felony assault complaints fell 6.4% in July, compared to that month last year, and were down 0.4% through July compared with the same period in 2025.
— Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
