You could call it a spirited gathering.
As Gotham’s team of the moment rallied to a nailbiting 107-106 Game 4 win over the San Antonio Spurs in the last 1.2 seconds Wednesday night, a watch party haunted an unusual — if not ghoulish — locale: Sparrow Contemporary Funeral Home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
The gathering drew about 75 Knicks fans-turned-funeral-home-guests, who savored the home team’s shocking recovery from a 29-point deficit within the parlor’s two service rooms, each space featuring a large projector screen, ample seating, and a spread of wine, beer, soda, chips and some appropriately orange and blue snacks.
Perhaps Knicks fans from the great beyond even joined them in spirit?
Sparrow owner Erica Hill told The Post that she’d initially been shocked by the “micro-viral” response to her initial Instagram posts promoting the party — one featuring a Knicks logo and cheeky overlay text proclaiming, “We know a thing or two about loss.”
That said, Hill, who founded the boutique spot in November 2021, has never viewed her business as a site solely for the morose, having hosted book launches, meditative experiences, and even comedy shows in the open-concept space.
At the watch party, while the volume was more respectful than an unruly bar level, it was still a lively group — and why not?
“My whole thing is, why can’t a funeral home be more than a ‘death space?’” said Hill, who intentionally designed Sparrow with light-colored walls, contemporary artwork, and skylights to go against the dark, gloomy funeral home archetype. “Why can’t it be a community space, where [people] come together to do many things?”
It wasn’t the only unexpected venue with a pop-up party, either.
The mosque at the Islamic Center of New York City in the West Village expected about 100 fans for its own gathering Wednesday night. And Jersey City’s Liberty Science Center welcomed revelers to a raucous Game 4 “After Dark” bash inside the soaring, 89-foot dome at Jennifer Chalsty Planetarium, with plans for another this Saturday for what Knicks fans hope is the championship finale, with Jalen Brunson and crew now leading the series 3-1.
Funeral guru Hill has cheered in the Knicks’ journey through the team’s run, but she was really inspired to host her shindig after seeing the recent video of the Knicks’ Karl-Anthony “KAT” Towns in which the NBA standout spoke about feeling his late mother’s presence on the court during Game 1 of the finals.
In the viral interview, Towns — who lost his mother Jacqueline Cruz in April 2020 due to complications from COVID-19 — said that he felt “a calm and a peace” while playing, having felt like he was “seeing her in the stands.”
A deeply moved Hill lost her own father, a lifelong basketball fan and player, a few years prior.
“We live in a society that doesn’t like to talk about people who have died, our grief or our sadness,” said Hill. “And then you see this New York Knicks [player] talk about his mom and how clearly he felt her presence — I just thought that was so beautiful [and] to honor him, we should have our own watch party here.”
Knicks cap-wearing attendee Will Borowski, a 28-year-old grave digger and monument restoration worker at Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, first learned about it through a friend, death doula Gabrielle Gatto, who attends regular professional meet-ups at Sparrow.
Borowski confessed that he thought the idea seemed more than a little “out there.”
But, ever-willing to try new things, the native Brooklynite and avid Knicks fan tagged along — and almost immediately felt that it was “everywhere [he] needed to be.”
“Being a grave digger, it starts out, like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s this family grieving their loved one,’” Borowski told The Post. “After a while, it all blends into one job that I have to do … I think being here puts that into perspective. Everyone’s here because they grew up knowing somebody who was a big fan of sports, and that person touched them in a way that left a lasting impact.”
Instead of a funeral guest sign-in book, though, a Knicks logo-emblazoned easel board titled “Who Are You Watching For?” awaited party-goers, who added the names of departed loved ones who were dedicated sports fans.
For Borowski, that person was his uncle Kevin.
“He’s always someone I’ve sort of kept in my heart since he passed — we would always B.S. about why teams were doing well, why they weren’t doing well,” said Borowski. “He was the first person I thought of when I walked in here.”
For 32-year-old Gatto, who also works at Green-Wood, attending the event was a no-brainer.
On the board, she honored her uncle Vinnie, a firefighter and captain of Bed-Stuy’s FDNY Engine Company 235 who died of 9/11-related cancer.
“He would have loved this because he really lived life to the fullest,” Gatto told The Post. “His number one thing was to show up and be weird and see who falls in love with you because of that, and I think that’s what’s happening right here, right now.”
Sara Donnellan, a 31-year-old writer, checked out the party with her husband, Drummond Dominguez-Kincannon, after a friend initially shared the funeral home’s Instagram post with her as a joke. Having attended one of the home’s comedy shows in years past, she remembered being “impressed” by the warm environment and the unique way that Sparrow aimed to demystify death.
Dominguez-Kincannon, on the other hand, was a bit more hesitant when she asked whether he wanted to go.
“I was, like, ‘I don’t know, do I?’” Dominguez-Kincannon told The Post.
However, after his wife explained Sparrow’s mission, he quickly changed his tune.
“I’d thought, OK, that’s pretty cool,” Dominguez-Kincannon recalled. “I won’t be walking into a gloomy space … When I walked in, I was, like, all right — vibes seem high.”
More than anything, attending a Knicks party at a funeral home made the couple reflect on how grief and joy can often walk hand-in-hand — and at their best, bring the community together.
“I like the idea of coming into spaces like this, not just for a loved one passing,” said Sara. “Just recognizing that it doesn’t have to be this scary space — it can be just like any other place in the community that opens up doors.”
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