u/GoodSamaritan_

The top 5 and the bottom 5 per the vote were as follows:

Bottom 5

30. Golden State Warriors (Bob Fitzgerald and Kelenna Azubuike)

31. Philadelphia 76ers (Kate Scott and Alaa Abdelnaby)

32. Milwaukee Bucks (Lisa Byington and Marques Johnson

33. Washington Wizards (Chris Miller and Drew Gooden)

34. Oklahoma City Thunder (Chris Fisher and Michael Cage)

Top 5

1. New York Knicks (Mike Breen and Walt Frazier)

2. Brooklyn Nets (Ian Eagle, Ryan Ruocco, and Sarah Kustok)

3. Chicago Bulls (Adam Amin and Stacey King)

4. Toronto Raptors (Matt Devlin, Jack Armstrong, and Alvin Williams)

5. Charlotte Hornets (Eric Collins and Dell Curry)

Source: https://archive.ph/SFM7x

Noureddine Bitat went from the end of a 13-hour shift behind the wheel of a yellow cab to being dragged onto the street by a mob in the wake of win by the Knicks — then watched helplessly as the taxi was trashed.

The 59-year-old Algerian cabbie became engulfed in the wild scenes that unfolded on the blocks north of Madison Square Garden and between Fifth and Eighth avenues after Game 4 of the NBA Finals. That’s when rowdy revelers swarmed the leased 2026 Toyota Sienna as it headed east at 36th Street and Seventh Avenue, shattering its windshield and meter and stomping on its roof and hood.

“I’m here only to make a living,” Bitat told The City Reporter through a translator. “It’s not nice for the fans, in their disappointed spirit, to act like they’re in the jungle and be dangerous for the population.”

The brutalized cabbie’s comments came hours before police arrested more than 60 people in New York City as the Knicks took the NBA championship with a Game 5 win in San Antonio on Saturday night. Vandals destroyed five school buses being used as shuttles to MetLife Stadium for the World Cup, a 17-year-old was shot, several people were slashed or stabbed and 10 NYPD officers were injured as tens of thousands of fans flooded the streets, police officials said.

Occasionally breaking into tears, Bitat struggled to recount in Arabic the mayhem that broke out as fans exited The Garden and merged with crowds in the streets.

Bitat had been on his way home to Queens after ferrying a passenger he had picked up at LaGuardia Airport to Lower Manhattan.

But he never made it past 36th and 7th, where police stopped vehicles as crowds gathered.
“Too much, too much people,” he said. “They opened the doors, even the trunk, then forced me to come out from the car when one guy grabbed me by the neck.”

Bitat, who suffers from diabetes, spent part of the day being checked out at a Queens hospital after fainting while leaving his home. A cabbie for just over two years, he said he now is not sure if he will drive again.

“I’m thinking of quitting,” he said. “Once I saw the cab, it was very traumatic.”

“I worried they were going to set fire to the car, they tried to tip it over,” he said. “That’s when the cops came.” 

During the chaos, in which he was punched in the head, Bitat said he stood off to the side as he worried about being penalized by the garage that had leased him the Sienna, a new wheelchair-accessible model. He shot video of the damage with his phone.

“They were yelling, ‘Knicks five! Knicks five! Knicks five!” he said.

The head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance credited Bitat for what she called his “very impressive presence of mind” in reacting to the attack.

“In that mob scene, it could have really escalated if he did not keep his cool,” Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. “He kept himself alive and safe, which I don’t think everybody can do.”

Bitat said he does not plan to rejoin the ranks of the city’s nearly 180,000 licensed yellow taxi drivers anytime soon. So he will miss out on the chance to ferry passengers during the World Cup, when more than 1 million visitors are expected to come to New York City for the monthlong tournament that is holding eight games just across the Hudson River in the New Jersey Meadowlands.

Desai said the taxi workers association will guide Bitat in filing for workers’ compensation funds that can help him with medical bills.

“That’s so he gets full medical service, including therapy for the trauma and see about other work,” she said.

A video posted shows about a dozen people on top of the taxi Bitat was driving, with one man smacking the cab’s busted windshield with a belt while another holds a Palestinian flag.

Bitat said he knows next to nothing about basketball, identifying himself instead as a “soccer man.” But he said was aware of the significance of the Knicks’ win.

“We’re all happy that the Knicks made it and that they won their third game,” he said. “But don’t change it to a riot and destroying the public’s things.”

Source:

https://www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/06/14/cab-driver-knicks-attack-madison-square-garden-game-4/