Ben Stiller, like so many others around NYC, had become numb to the losing, the dysfunction, the pain.
The Knicks were accepted as “a joke,” he said, and standards were lowered to cope.
“My whole life I’ve lived with this idea that, ‘Oh, the Knicks aren’t going to make it, the Knicks have never been good, the Knicks have been a joke for a long time back in the day,’ ” Stiller, the award-winning comedian and director, told The Post. “It almost became something you accept.”
Stiller’s fandom began during the 1973-74 season, when his father’s friends — Freddie and Stan — invited the youngster to their eighth-row seats behind the Knicks bench. Coincidentally, that campaign started a 53-year championship drought and Stiller, whose fandom was reinvigorated after moving back to NYC from LA in 2010, witnessed plenty from courtside seats.
