NEW YORK — The only thing the Knicks’ magical playoff run was missing was the team’s owner inserting himself into a feud.
It took until Game 4 of the NBA Finals, but on Wednesday, James Dolan officially entered one with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani—whom he said was “not a Knicks fan”—and police commissioner Jessica Tisch.
At the heart of the finger-pointing is the team and city’s handling of watch parties at the plaza outside of Madison Square Garden, which did not take place for Games 3 and 4.
The watch parties have been a Knicks mainstay in recent years and went on throughout the playoffs until Monday’s Game 3, when U.S. President Donald Trump attended. New York’s police department and City Hall said that increased security and a canceled watch party were to protect Trump; the Knicks said that New York officials wanted to cordon off the area around the arena regardless.
On Wednesday afternoon, hours before his team’s historic 29-point comeback that gave them a commanding 3–1 series lead, Dolan went on New York sports-talk radio and laced into Mamdani and Tisch.
“I don’t think they have faith in their own police force,” Dolan told Craig Carton. “We do! We know they know what they’re doing. Honestly, the mayor’s office and the commissioner do not have the experience to do this. They’ve never managed anything like this before.”
Mamdani said the team did file a permit with the city for a watch party, but it requested only between 500 and 999 people when it could have asked for more. Dolan ultimately decided to not have the party at all.
“Mr. Dolan has now decided to cancel the watch party,” Mamdani tweeted.
The mayor ultimately made the game available on LinkNYC kiosks around the city.
The sides released a flurry of statements throughout the week. Mamdani spokesperson Joe Calvello said Wednesday that Dolan “seems hell bent on making sure the city has rancid vibes for the finals run.”
And with less than an hour before tip-off, MSG released a statement saying the arena and team “declined to use the permit granted by Mayor Mamdani’s office” because of the small number of fans allowed to gather. “We did not think it was fair to just allow a small group to celebrate outside the Garden when everybody else was being shut out.”
It was far from the first public beef for Dolan, who has made it something of an art form over the past two decades.
“A Desperate Publicity Stunt”
More than 20 years ago, Dolan publicly attacked a proposal by the city to build a new stadium for the Jets on Manhattan’s West Side due to the threat it posed to the Garden’s status as the Big Apple’s primary entertainment venue.
It led the Jets to sue Dolan and his late father, Chuck, who were co-running Cablevision at the time, alleging antitrust violations over the family’s fear of losing its monopoly on entertainment. Cablevision called the lawsuit “a desperate publicity stunt by the Jets.” The suit was ultimately settled out of court, and the Jets still play in New Jersey.
Dolan has also been engaged in a yearslong court battle with ex-Knick Charles Oakley after the 6-foot-9 forward was removed from the Garden by arena security before a game in February 2017. Oakley had been critical of Dolan’s ownership leading up to the event; Dolan went on the radio the next day and said “he may have a problem with alcohol.”
Oakley’s lawsuit against MSG from the incident is still ongoing.
Even commissioner Adam Silver and Michael Jordan couldn’t resolve the Dolan-Oakley feud.
“It is a shame in that I tried, Michael Jordan tried, too, as you said, to broker peace between Charles and Jim Dolan,” Silver told reporters last week before Game 1. “Our efforts were unsuccessful. I think it’s unfortunate for the NBA that this is an ongoing situation. But as you know, it’s currently wrapped up in litigation. I tried my best. So I don’t really see anything else I can do at the moment.”
Just three years later, Dolan found himself at odds with another Knicks legend—director and superfan Spike Lee, who says he’s spent millions on Knicks tickets over the years. In 2020, the director and the team got in a squabble over Lee’s ability to use an employee entrance. Lee called the Knicks a “laughingstock” and said “Dolan is harassing me,” while the Knicks called his claims “laughable.”
Dolan and Lee have since made peace, and the director remains a courtside fixture at these Finals.
Silver himself has been in battles with the Knicks owner, too.
In November 2023, the Knicks sued the Raptors, claiming theft of confidential information through a former Knicks employee who was hired by Toronto. The team said Silver’s close relationship with Raptors governor Larry Tanenbaum made the commissioner too biased to fairly mediate the issue, but a federal judge ruled Silver could handle it anyway. The two sides ultimately had the suit dismissed in October, but not before Dolan became the lone owner to vote against awarding Tanenbaum and Toronto a WNBA expansion team.
The Knicks owner has also been an outspoken critic of the league’s new media-rights deal shifting games from local television to national. In July 2024, Dolan wrote a letter to his fellow NBA owners criticizing the deal and accusing the NBA of taking more money for itself than its teams, using the figures the league said were inaccurate.
“The NBA has made the move to an NFL model — deemphasizing and depowering the local market,” Dolan wrote in his letter. “Soon, your only revenue concern will be the sale of tickets and what color next year’s jersey will be. Don’t worry, because due to revenue pooling, you are guaranteed to be neither a success nor a failure.”
Dolan’s team is one win away from the ultimate success: an NBA title that has eluded the franchise for more than a half century.
Barring an unlikely rally from the Spurs in a 3–1 deficit, the governor and commissioner will find themselves onstage at center court in the coming days with Dolan accepting the Larry O’Brien trophy after years of failed mediations and accusations of favoritism or greed. Then, a few days later, Mamdani could be handing Dolan or one of his players a key to the city as the team parades down Broadway.
No hard feelings, right?
