Brave NYC boy with sickle cell disease gets heartwarming VIP treatment at Knicks finals game

His special night was nothing but net.A brave Manhattan boy who has “kept smiling” through years of excruciating sickle cell disease had the time of his life at Monday’s Knicks game thanks to a charity that partners with Madison Square Garden, his mom told The Post.Marvell CharlesPierre Jr., 8,  who goes by “MJ,” scored a free ticket to Game 3 of the NBA finals Monday as part of the Garden of Dreams program — and was “hyped up” with “joy,” said his mother, Angelina Rosado.“Knowing how much crying he’s done and how many hospitals and needles he’s endured, those moments  of joy at the game were so amazing,”  said Rosado, 33, of the Lower East Side.“He just wants to be a regular kid.”MJ, a third grader at PS 15, got special early entrance and access to the team’s pre-game warm-up alongside celebrities in the nearly empty arena.“He felt like VIP,” Rosado said, adding he was  also given a hip, royal blue Knicks hat.MJ — who has spent days-long stints in emergency rooms since first being diagnosed with the painful blood disease at 1 month old  — was swept away by the excited energy of the crowd as the Knicks took on the Spurs, ultimately losing by just four points.“To see him jumping up, screaming and cheering — those were super-happy moments,” said Rosado, who posted a heartwarming montage of the game night on Instagram.

“His face was lighting up.”“He was screaming ‘defense!’” she said.“The crowd really hyped him up.”“It was so dope for me as a mom to see that,” she added.People like MJ who have sickle cell disease suffer from severe pain when their mutated, crescent-shaped red blood cells clump together and block blood flow.The blockage —known as a vaso-occlusive crisis — can flare up at unpredictable times, restricting blood flow and leading to severe inflammation and intense pain.“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” Rosado said of her son’s “gut wrenching” diagnosis, and ...