Thousands of Knicks fans filled Madison Square Garden on Monday night for the NBA Finals. When Donald Trump showed up on the big screen, basketball took a back seat for a while and the President of the United States received a very New York response.
Trump became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game, attending as the personal guest of Knicks owner James Dolan, a longtime friend and campaign donor. He sat in a specially constructed box with bulletproof glass, near midcourt, halfway up the seating area. Very casual and very normal for a basketball game taking place around what looked like a fortress.
The crowd, however, was not impressed.
Chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” echoed through the arena as Avery Wilson sang the national anthem, but they gave way to boos after Trump appeared on the jumbo screens giving a military salute. The crowd reaction carried through the arena and lasted well beyond a few seconds. Trump walked out afterward and shared a different version of what had happened.
“I thought great. I thought it was amazing, actually. It was I think mostly cheers.”
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“It was loud, and it was very enthusiastic.”
Q: What did you think of the reception you got from Knicks fans tonight?
TRUMP: I thought great. I thought it was amazing, actually. It was I think mostly cheers.
(Trump was loudly booed) pic.twitter.com/Bv999zKDLP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 9, 2026
Technically, he is not wrong about the enthusiasm.
The night had a few more problems waiting beyond the court, at least for Knicks fans. The Knicks lost 115-111, snapping a 13-game playoff win streak. Some fans had to wait two hours or more just to get inside because of the sweeping security measures his attendance required. Watch parties in the surrounding neighborhood were cancelled entirely, while the NYPD set up a broad security perimeter around the area.
Not everyone stayed quiet about the disruption.
Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox weighed in, saying that “the President being here just makes it inconvenient on everyone else.”
Trump also had a response when asked about ticket prices putting the game out of reach for ordinary New Yorkers.
“That’s the way life goes,” he said, adding that “it’s sort of semi-free to watch it on television.”
The crowd reaction also makes more sense when looking at New York’s voting history. In the 2024 presidential election, Trump received fewer than 839,000 votes in New York City, compared with more than 1.9 million votes for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. New York has not been his city for a very long time.
This was also not the first time Trump showed up at a major sports event and was met with boos from the crowd. During the US Open men’s final at Arthur Ashe Stadium in September 2025, the Jumbotron showed him during the National Anthem and the reaction sounded very similar. The pattern has been fairly consistent, and so has the response that followed. He hears applause that nobody else in the room can hear.
Featured image via X screengrab
