The Knicks showed us the good guys can still win

Wednesday night's incredible Game 4 Knicks win was about far more than basketball. It was about far more, even, than unity.

I grew up in the 1990s watching Michael Jordan soar through the air. Even as a New Yorker, you couldn't help but admire him. You cheered. You rooted. You celebrated. Watching an athlete — or any professional — in their flow state is awe-inspiring.

Now, in my late 40s, I'm watching basketball with my son, a true-blue Knicks fan in his 20s. He's watched every game this season. And he reminds me that I was a fair-weather Knicks fan in the Jordan era.

But what we watched the other night was about something deeper.

Because the past few games saw injustice unfold in favor of the San Antonio Spurs — and you know the plays I'm talking about. Fouls without calls. Flagrants waved off. Referees turning a blind eye. The fans called it out. The players called it out. The Knicks' coach called it out. Even New York's mayor called it out. And many of us were left frustrated and angry.

It wasn't just that the Spurs weren't called for what they were doing wrong. It's that the Knicks were being called for so much less. The injustice rankled. It brought back triggering feelings for many of us. In the past few years, we have watched so many wrongdoers and people with ill intentions win. It has made us question our sense of fairness, our belief in a just world. We haven't been able to explain it to our children. And to see it happen on screen in front of us — to the point where even the announcers were perplexed — was almost more than we could bear.

In Game 4, it happened early. We saw what should have been a technical foul. We saw the goaltending. We saw calls the refs should have made and didn't. Some of us even wanted to resort to fighting dirty, the belief that we could just do it the right way erased by years of going high and losing. We were more than frustrated — ready to give up, ready to turn down the volume. Heck, my son went downstairs and refused to watch the rest of the game.

It wasn't just sports frustration. It was human frustration.

And as the Knicks began to chip away — down 29 points, the largest deficit any team has ever erased in the NBA Finals — most of us stayed discouraged at first. Larry David refused to cheer at the beginning of the comeback. We'd seen this story before. Sure, the good guys get a chance. They rally a little. But in the end, they lose. In the 2020s, that feels like the inevitable story. The good guys lose.

But the Knicks showed us something better. They just kept on chipping away. And in the final moments, with an unadulterated belief in themselves and determination, they won — as if to say to the Spurs' Victor Wembanyama: No, you're not in our heads. We're in yours.

No matter what the score says, the Knicks blew that game out of the water.

The Knicks proved that if we are good enough, if we strive and persevere little by little, we can win. It doesn't have to be miraculous. We don't have to fix everything in one shot. We can win person by person. Tweet by tweet. Job by job. Election by election. We can return good to the place it belongs.

The Knicks told us, taught us, showed us: There is a way. There is a path back to goodness. In my mind, these Knicks will always be heroes. No matter what happens in this series, they're the true winners.

And so are we.

This guest essay reflects the views of Seema Bhansali, an attorney, speaker and writer based in East Setauket, and the founder of evolvEQ Strategies.