Here’s something London can be envious of: when New York parties, it really parties | Emma Brockes

A riot of joy and hugging and screaming followed the Knicks’ historic win. Britons can be jolly (Arsenal fans just were), but this was the gold standard

There was a moment on Sunday morning when, scrolling through pages of content celebrating the New York Knicks’ spectacular NBA championship win in the city, videos in which it seemed people of every age, race, background and zip code put aside their differences to hug and scream, I wondered how far the principle of sport-as-the-ultimate-leveller might stretch.

For example: given the joy on Saturday night was so intense, could you have sent the most hated figures in the US into the ecstatic Knicks viewing parties, those gatherings of thousands who came together to watch the game projected on to the sides of buildings, and witnessed the joy of the event transform them into regular humans? Greg Bovino, say, the loathed former US border tsar in his soldier-of-fortune Halloween costume, pop a jaunty Knicks cap on his head and might he elicit high fives? What about ICE agents in Knicks jerseys? I tried to imagine Elon Musk, a man who has surely never thrown, caught or enjoyed watching a ball in flight in his life, attending a Knicks party and experiencing, possibly for the first time, a group of people who appeared genuinely pleased to see him.

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