Thirty-two years ago today, I stood with a million and a half of my closest friends in the Canyon of Heroes and screamed my 9-year-old lungs out in the direction of the 1994 Rangers, who days earlier had won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 54 years. That same night, I watched on TV as the Knicks (occasionally in split screen) defeated the Houston Rockets to take a 3-2 series lead in the NBA Finals. Life as a fourth-grade sports fan was good.

That spring is widely regarded as one of the greatest stretches in New York sports history — a time when the city was buzzing as two teams chased titles, taking turns in the spotlight on alternating nights. Even a child could understand that we were watching something special.

But what we’ve just witnessed as a city has topped it. The Knicks’ incredible title run, which unified the city like no sporting event before it, might just be the absolute peak of New York sports fandom — a perfect mix of circumstances that has heightened the joy of this moment and may be impossible to replicate ever again.

Over the past few weeks, New Yorkers have gathered to watch their Knicks not just at the Garden, but from bars and parks and sidewalks and at least one Brooklyn funeral home. We’ve high-fived strangers in Knicks gear and eaten blue-and-orange bagels and written Knicks-themed Billy Joel parodies. We’ve flushed our toilets as one, when it was finally safe to step away from the TV.

When game five of the NBA Finals ended and the Knicks — the Knicks! — were finally crowned champions, New Yorkers spilled out into the streets to celebrate. There was cheering and crying and Champagne and fireworks. All over the city, we sang and danced and hugged, turning New York into one enormous small town. One wondered if the party might........

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