Assaults bounced up 31% during Knicks NBA Finals games, even as all other crimes fell as city watched championship run: study

It’s the Knick of crime.Felony assaults bounced up more than 31% during nights when the New York Knicks played in the NBA Finals — even amid a drop in crime citywide, a new study found.The rise in assaults on game nights mirrored how the Big Apple has struggled to block a stubborn increase in felony assaults, according to the midyear crime report from non-partisan policy journal Vital City.The Knicks’ historic championship run consumed New York City over five games, including an electrifying Game 4 comeback in which the team erased a 29-point deficit and won with a miraculous tip-in by forward OG Anunoby.On those nights, overall crime complaints fell 11.1% below normal at 9 p.m.— only to rebound 38.7% above average at 1 a.m.

as the Knicks battled the San Antonio Spurs and ultimately won their first championship in 53 years, the study found.“Conclusion: A city watching basketball is a city not doing much else (and committing less crime),” the report states.“A city leaving bars and partying in the streets is another matter.”The spike offered a natural “experiment” on the increase in felony assaults overall that’s bucked a citywide dip in other violent crime, the researchers wrote.Every type of major crime except felony assault and rape fell during the first half of 2026, continuing a steady decline from a peak during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the study.Murders and shootings were respectively down 12.9% and 11.3%, compared to the same point in last pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the analysis, which looked at crime stats over the first six months of 2026.“By these two measures of serious violence, the city is now safer than it was before the pandemic,” the study states.“But major crime is still 25% higher than it was pre-pandemic,” it said.

“In other words, New York City has recovered from lethal violence, but it has not yet recovered from the rest.”The increase in rapes came after the state broadened the crime�...