Tag: Spike Lee

Spike Lee had the most relatable reaction during the thrilling Liberty-Lynx Game 5 OT

Spike Lee was so shook here.

The New York Liberty are finally WNBA champions, but only after putting Spike Lee through a roller coaster of emotions.

On Sunday, the Liberty finished out their championship run against the Minnesota Lynx, winning Game 5 by a score of 67-62. Things weren’t easy for the Liberty though as the game had to go to overtime to get there before New York were able to pull away in the extra frame.

And during the overtime, cameras caught Lee — who is a huge Liberty fan — going through all of the emotions as he sat courtside on his hands and knees in a position of anxiety all sports fans are familiar with.

Hey, at least the Liberty didn’t leave Lee in despair like Game 1 of the WNBA Finals this time!

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=421393215]

Spike Lee looked utterly dejected watching the Liberty’s WNBA Finals collapse

Poor Spike Lee.

Spike Lee might need a hug after the Liberty’s heartbreaking loss to open the WNBA Finals.

Lee, a known Liberty fan, was there as New York’s enormous lead came tumbling down in regulation. With five minutes remaining in regulation, the Minnesota Lynx erased a 15-point lead, punctuated by a clutch 4-point play from Courtney Williams.

Then, to add to the misery, Breanna Stewart missed a critical free throw that would have sealed a win and eventually missed a game-tying layup in overtime. BRUTAL. As you might suspect, poor Spike Lee looked utterly dejected on the sidelines as his team unraveled. Sending thoughts and condolences to him and Liberty fans everywhere.

(Feature image courtesy of ESPN)

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=117952]

Sabrina Ionescu credited Spike Lee’s mid-game high five for a Liberty playoff win

“I felt like New York was just injected into my veins.”

Sabrina Ionescu had an stellar night against the Atlanta Dream and credited Spike Lee for it.

Give kudos to the Dream. Atlanta played its heart out against one of the best teams in the league. But, a third-quarter surge proved too much for the team to overcome. Much of that enormous offensive burst was created by Jonquel Jones (20 points and 13 rebounds) and Sabrina Ionescu, who had a playoff career-high night (36 points and nine assists).

Ionescu just put her head down and went to work, wracking up 10 points in the 3rd quarter alone. But it might not all be because of Sabrina. There’s a mid-game high five from Spike Lee that possibly did some underrated heavy lifting to push the Liberty into a semifinal rematch with the Aces.

Here’s Ionescu explaining during a Liberty presser how that mid-game dap up changed the matchup:

“Spike Lee gave me a high five as I was going to take the ball out of bounds, and I felt, like, New York, was just, like, injected into my veins. At that moment, I was like, ‘We’re winning this…'”

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 tag=117952]

Spike Lee got Reggie Miller to sign some New York newspapers from their infamous Knicks-Pacers feud

Reggie Miller and Spike Lee reuniting during a Knicks-Pacers NBA playoff game is fantastic.

Former Indiana Pacers great Reggie Miller and Oscar-winning filmmaker and New York Knicks superfan Spike Lee reunited on Wednesday night during the 2024 NBA playoffs on much more amicable terms than from a few decades ago.

Recall Miller and Lee’s infamous rivalry from the 1994 NBA Eastern Conference finals, where Lee hilariously taunted Miller from courtside at Madison Square Garden and Miller responded on the court.

Well, there was no hard feelings at all for the two during the Knicks and Pacers’ 2024 second-round Eastern Conference playoff game at MSG, where Miller actually signed Lee’s copies of a few New York newspapers recapping their playoff feud from all those years ago.

That’s pretty cool to see that, after all these years, these two guys can reminisce over such a fun NBA playoff memory in this way. They might want different results from the game, but this is still so much fun.

You can relive their 1994 back-and-forth below. How has it been 30 years?

[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1373]

Aaron Rodgers soaked in the love as he attended Rangers and Knicks playoff games

New Jets QB Aaron Rodgers is soaking in the love in New York.

“New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers” is still a very weird phrase to type out, but he’s already making his home in the Big Apple.

Over the weekend, Rodgers attended playoff games for the New York Rangers and New York Knicks like a proper New Yorker should.

At the Rangers game on Saturday, he was in the stands and sang the Rangers goal song with former Packers teammate Allen Lazard, who signed with the Jets in March.

New York running back Breece Hall joined his new teammates for the game.

The three must’ve brought the Rangers some luck as they blanked the New Jersey Devils 5-2 in the playoff game to tie the series 3-3.

At Sunday’s Knicks game against the Miami Heat, Rodgers sat courtside and got a big welcome from the crowd.

He even met filmmaker and avid Knicks fan Spike Lee at the game, which is an awesome right of passage for any New York sports star.

While Rodgers has yet to take a snap for the Jets, he’s already the toast of the town in New York. As long as he wins games, he’ll probably stay that way.

Spike Lee wore an absolutely gigantic ‘Mars’ chain to the NBA Finals, and here’s why

It’s gotta be the shoes!

Film director Spike Lee is one of the world’s most famous basketball fans, and he proved why with his choice of attire for the NBA Finals.

Lee, a multi-time Academy Award and Emmy Award winner who was also nominated for a Grammy, was spotted courtside an hour before the Warriors and Celtics tipped off for the first game of the championship series.

It was hard to miss Lee, who was wearing a beautiful white suit, a white hat, and large white glasses. However, without a doubt, the most iconic part of his look was his chain.

Here is how it all looked for Lee on ESPN’s pre-game broadcast:

The chain, which is large enough that you can probably see it from Mars, is a tribute to Lee’s first film, She’s Gotta Have It (1986).

In the iconic Brooklyn movie, which was his directorial debut, Lee chose to cast himself in the supporting role of Mars Blackmon, who is obsessed with basketball.

The original movie was so successful that Lee, as Blackmon, went on to regularly co-star in commercials alongside Michael Jordan. You can watch those (most remembered for the line “it’s gotta be the shoes!”) commercials, which led to a release of the Jordan Mars 270 sneakers, here.

As an aside: Decades later, in the Netflix rendition of the show, Blackmon was portrayed by Anthony Ramos (who previously starred alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda in the original cast of Hamilton on Broadway).

So, in case you weren’t sure why you saw a picture of Lee repping a planet around his neck, now you have an answer!

[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f5k5x3v4hcz7e10g image=https://ftw.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

[listicle id=1864826]

While on the topic of New York Knicks …

While on the topic of New York Knicks fans, Young was asked about Spike Lee. Young said, “To be honest, Spike is like the perfect type of fan you want. You’re talking about fans going to far, Spike is the total opposite. He’s just going to cheer, talk trash but he’s going to talk trash the right way. He’s not going to go too far or say nothing crazy to the players or nothing like that.” Young continued, “He’s the perfect type of fan you want cheering your team on and I give a lot of respect to Spike because he shows love whenever the game is over with. Just like the other teams usually do, and it’s respect all around. So he’s definitely the perfect type of fan you want.”

The National Basketball Association is …

The National Basketball Association is offering virtual courtside seats on Meta’s $299 Oculus Quest 2 devices. The headsets were one of the most popular Christmas gifts in 2021, showing that people seem to be more willing than ever to give virtual reality a try. And businesses are trying to keep your eyeballs on their content by creating VR versions of their apps and games. The NBA experience is free and available on Meta’s Horizon Venues platform, which is a free software download for the Oculus headset. People appear as digital avatars, sort of like cartoon versions of their real selves, and watch an NBA game from a courtside perspective. It’s not Jack Nicholson’s Los Angeles Lakers seat at Crypto.com Arena or Spike Lee’s seat at Madison Square Garden, but it almost replicates the real thing.