Here’s how much Knicks’ celebrity row has changed from 1999 NBA Finals to now originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The New York Knicks are headed to the NBA Finals, something that many of their fans have never seen.
It had been 27 years since the Knicks’ last appearance in the NBA Finals, as the game’s greatest stage hasn’t returned to Madison Square Garden since 1999. That means the best celebrity row in sports hasn’t seen an NBA Finals game since before the turn of the millennium.
During the 1999 NBA Finals, the Knicks were a hot ticket in the playoffs, attracting all kinds of celebrities to sit courtside. Almost three decades later, celebrity row at MSG looks a lot different, but also features a few of the same faces.
Here’s a look at what celebrity row at Madison Square Garden looked like during the last Knicks NBA Finals appearance.
MORE: Knicks extend playoff winning streak with dominant Game 4 performance vs. Cavs
Knicks celebrity row in 1999
The last two NBA Finals games in Madison Square Garden were Games 4 and 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals between the Knicks and San Antonio Spurs. As expected, celebrity row for those games was full of some of the biggest celebrities of that time.
But what about celebrity row in Game 5, the final game in which the Knicks played in the Finals (until now)? Well, here ya go! pic.twitter.com/b8gnd2ds23
— Velodus✨ (@velodus) May 26, 2026
Here’s a look at who was on celebrity row at Knicks games in 1999.
Evander Holyfield
Boxer Evander Holyfield was at the back end of his boxing career and had recently come off a fight against Lennox Lewis in MSG just a few months prior.
Ben Stiller
Stiller is one of a few current members of celebrity row who have lasted this 27-year NBA Finals drought. The actor and comedian was at the early part of his acting and directing career but still had some big releases at the time, like “There’s Something About Mary” from a year prior.
James Caan
Caan was a born-and-raised New Yorker who had been famous for a few decades when he attended the 1999 NBA Finals in person.
John F. Kennedy Jr.
During the 1990s, John F. Kennedy Jr. was one of the most famous men in New York, let alone the United States. This NBA Finals occurred just less than a month before he was killed in a plane crash on Martha’s Vineyard.
Tiger Woods
In the late 1990s, Tiger Woods burst onto the scene by winning the 1997 Masters in historic fashion. The 24-year-old was in a box at the NBA Finals when he still had just one of his eventual 15 major championships.
Adam Sandler
Like Stiller, Sandler often still comes to Knicks games but was on the rise as an actor and comedian in the 1990s. Some of Sandler’s movies that came out around this time were “Happy Gilmore”, “The Waterboy”, and “Big Daddy.”
Billy Crystal
Crystal’s New York upbringing is well-documented and was in the middle of his long and successful career as an actor, director and producer. He served as the host of the Academy Awards in each of the previous two years.
Woody Allen
Actor, director and filmmaker Woody Allen was far into his Hollywood career, allowing him to attend both games courtside. Allen is another celebrity who was born and raised in New York City.
Spike Lee
In some circles, Lee is more known for being a Knicks fan than being a famous director. In the 1990s, Lee’s success as a director led to him not only attending playoff games courtside, but also being a central character in the Knicks’ playoff runs.
Rick Moranis
Moranis has stayed out of the limelight for the past few decades, but he was at one point a famous name and face in Hollywood. The Canadian actor and director was in many big movies and TV shows in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Matt Dillon
Matt Dillon was in many big movies in the 1990s, but was coming off being Stiller’s co-star in “There’s Something About Mary”, which was released in 1998.
Bill Bradley
Former Knicks two-time NBA champion Bill Bradley represented New Jersey in the Senate in the 1980s, and ended up running for president in 2000. In between, Bradley returned to MSG to support his former team.
Stephen Baldwin
The Baldwin family is always in the public eye, but Stephen Baldwin was perhaps at the height of his fame in the late-1990s.
Macho Camacho
Puerto Rican boxer Macho Camacho was a dominant boxer and was near the end of his great career in the late 1990s. In the meantime, Camacho became a pop culture icon.
Matthew Modine
Finally, Matthew Modine has been acting since the 1980s and had two big movies in 1999: “Any Given Sunday” and “Notting Hill”. Therefore, he was a big presence on celebrity row.
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