My mother was a respected public school teacher and a trustee at the church where I grew up in Brooklyn, but every now and then she forgot about all that and completely broke decorum.
Like the time my brother and I took her to a Knicks game at The Garden.
It has been so long ago that I can’t recall if it was a day game or a night game, or if it was during the playoffs or the regular season. And, to be honest, I don’t even remember if they won or lost.
What I do remember is that they were playing the Boston Celtics, and the crowd was pretty electric. You could barely hear the organ, and the chants of “dee-fense” were deafening.
As we cheered our hometown heroes, we were momentarily distracted from our frenzy by a seedy group of Celtics fans parading past our section with a banner that carried crude insults about New York and the Knicks.
They were a brave lot, I’ll give them that. They were quickly showered with boos and insults, along with various food items and beverages, including my mother’s large Pepsi.
One minute, she was grousing about the cost of a soda; the next minute she was hurling it at some rabid rival Celtics fans — and enjoying every minute. Meanwhile, my brother and I were shocked. Who was this woman who had come with us to the game?
That memory resurfaced for me the other day when Mayor Adams’ ‘X’ feed scrolled across my screen after the Knicks’ embarrassing Game 5 playoff loss in Boston at what New Yorkers accurately describe as “the other” Garden.
Adams needed only two words to express his disappointment, and the shared sentiment of many New Yorkers: “Buck Foston.”
Another chapter in the rivalry.
I had two immediate reactions. The first was to flash back to the schoolteacher with the soda.
The second was my concern that the mayor had poked the bear, that his tweet would be locker room material that would inspire the Celtics to a playoff series victory.
I feared Adams could become Spike Lee to the Indiana Pacers’ Reggie Miller, and the mayor would be blamed for another moment of New York sports infamy.
Of course, that didn’t happen. The beloved Knicks vanquished the hated Celtics at home Friday night in Game 6, advancing to the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years.
Somebody take away the mayor’s phone.
Oh, that’s right. He has several.
“You have your office phone, you have your personal phone — you can’t mix the two,” Adams told reporters recently amid ongoing questions about his recently dropped corruption case.
“Many New Yorkers have several phones. I had also my campaign phone. So there’s a series of phones that you have.”
He should stay off all of them when the Knicks open their series Wednesday night against the Pacers in New York.
And the mayor would be well advised to stay away from The Garden’s Celebrity Row, lest he be forced to deal with never-ending questions about how he acquired a ticket to the hottest show on Broadway.
And we’re not talking about “Othello.”
Former Gov. David Paterson was fined $62,000 by the state’s Commission on Public Integrity for unlawfully taking free baseball tickets to Game 1 of the 2009 World Series at Yankee Stadium.
I was at that game. I saw him there.
Paterson violated the public officer’s law by soliciting and accepting free gifts from a registered lobbyist, the Yankees, for himself, his son, his son’s friend and two aides, according to the watchdog group.
Adams doesn’t need that kind of distraction right now. And neither do the Knicks.
