October 24, 2025
‘Anytime the (Chicago) Bulls would come, me and Mike (Michael Jordan) would get into it,’ Lee said.
Filmmaker Spike Lee, inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame as a superfan in 2024, told Stephen Colbert about his countless courtside clashes with players while cheering on his beloved New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
According to the New York Post, the movie director took the stage at the Montclair Film Festival (taking place through Oct. 26) in Montclair, New Jersey, to discuss his verbal battles with some of the best basketball players in the league. Lee, the creative behind several classic movies (“Do the Right Thing,” “Crooklyn,” “She’s Gotta Have It”) filmed in and around New York City, is just as likely known for being a rambunctious Knicks fan who is a mainstay at the Garden. He is typically seen rooting for the home team, but often engages in verbal battles with opposing players while cheering on the Knicks.
Lee also gained fame when he directed and appeared in a Nike commercial featuring NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan, who shattered Knicks fans’ dreams every time he faced the team in the playoffs in epic battles between the two franchises during the 1990s. Although they are good friends, the filmmaker did not escape harsh words from arguably the greatest basketball player ever to put on sneakers.
“I’ve had the privilege and honor to be called a ‘motherf**ker’ by the GOAT himself — many times — across the river at the world’s most famous arena,” he said during the conversation with Colbert.
He also recalled Jordan’s famous return from his first retirement and his “double nickel” (55 points at Madison Square Garden) in 1995.
“Anytime the Bulls would come, me and Mike would get into it,” Lee laughed. “At one point, he said, ‘Sit your skinny Black ass down!’”
The “Inside Man” director also brought up, perhaps, one of the most memorable games at Madison Square Garden, when the Knicks hosted the Indiana Pacers, featuring their chief nemesis, Reggie Miller, the sharpshooting three-point specialist. During the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals at the famed Garden, as the Knicks were losing a game they had been leading heading into the closing minutes, Miller revealed the infamous “choker” sign toward Lee. That choke sign was so devastating to New York fans that they blamed Lee for energizing Miller to literally shoot the Knicks down that night.
With the media blaming Lee rather than the Knicks’ lapse in defense at the end of the game, he knew that his place of residence would have had to change if the Knicks had lost the next deciding game in the series.
“If we lost that game, I would’ve had to move. The Post, Daily News, Newsday — all blaming me for the choke,” he told Colbert.
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