Cameron Issacs, one of the youngest New York Knicks fans, stayed up way past his bedtime Wednesday night, watching his team trample the San Antonio Spurs with a 107-to-106 buzzer-beater victory.
But winning is nothing new to the eight-day-old. He was born mere hours before the Knicks scored their first triumph against their southwestern opponents during Game 1 of the NBA Finals on June 3.
“He’s like their good luck charm,” mom Kazaya, 30, and dad Anthony, 35, both Bronx natives now living in South Florida, agreed with a laugh while exclusively talking to The Post.
Baby Cameron is one of hundreds of newborns to storm the scene — whether as near as the Upper East Side’s Lennox Hill Hospital, where Labor & Delivery nurses are gifting infants Knicks-bedecked beanies, or as far as the opposite coast — as the Knicks sprint ever-closer to their first championship trophy since 1973.
The ballers fell short of the glory in 1994 and 1999, both times suffering sore losses that have loomed like a dark cloud over the city for nearly three decades.
But now, with a 3-win lead over Spurs — a last-second accomplishment clinched by OG Anunoby, which sent thunderous thrills through the likes of Taylor Swift, Nas, Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, Spike Lee and VIPs of similar ilk at the Garden Wednesday — the skies over NYC are finally shining blue (and orange) again.
Anthony, a lifelong Knicks fanatic, has been breathing happy sighs of relief since his team’s fresh wind of fortunate hit full-force on his son’s birthday.
“It was such a dreamy day,” gushed Anthony, a United States Postal Service worker, of the milestone moment for both his family and his big-game favorites. “Kazaya had the baby via C-section, and she scheduled it not even knowing that was Game 1 of the finals.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, my god, that’s Game 1. What are we gonna do?’ But then I realized the birth was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. that day,” added the zealot, founder of online fan community KnicksNation.
At the crack of dawn on June 3, he and Kazaya, also parents to Cameron’s big sister, Aria, 8, headed to a hospital in Palm Beach County, Fl., dressed head-to-toe in New York Knicks gear.
Branded hats, a blue and orange suitcase and a duffle bag stitched with point guard Jalen Brunson’s name and jersey number showcased their unabashed fandom.
Their early appointment and sports fan swag helped put Anthony’s pounding heart at ease.
“I was like, ‘Okay, he’ll be born, we’ll enjoy him and then the game will be in the evening,’” he recalled. “‘We can watch it with him.’”
And that they did — right from the comforts of their hospital room.
“When they won the first game of the Finals, I wanted to belt out screaming, but you know, I couldn’t because we were still in the hospital and I didn’t want to scare the baby,” said Anthony, who would have “loved” to name his first son “Jalen,” an honorable nod to Brunson, but already has a nephew with the hot moniker.
For Kazaya, a realtor, watching the Knicks spank the Spurs has come as a “nice distraction” as she’s convalescing post C-section — an invasive birthing procedure accomplished through incisions made in a mother’s abdomen and uterus.
“Now that we’re home, recovery’s been rough and there’s a lot I can’t do right now,” said the second-time new mommy. “So watching them play is something fun that I can do while lying down on the couch.”
Cameron, however, was upright, watching Game 4 with Anthony as he paced their living room floor during the nail-biting bout.
Aria, a newly initiated Knicks fan like mom and dad, was fast asleep around midnight before being startled awake by Anthony’s screams when his home team secured the game series lead.
“It was incredible,” Kazaya chuckled, unfazed by her hubby’s disruptive delight. “We were all really excited.”
On May 8, 2026, Emilio Weeks came into the world, another Knicks-centered day marked by Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, in which the Knicks faced the 76ers.
“Matt just kept saying, ‘You have to get this baby out before the game starts,” joked mother Alexis Hernandez of her husband.
With just a few hours to spare between Emilio’s birth and the 8:30 p.m. tipoff, the New York native describes snuggling up with her newborn, enjoying Taco Bell with her husband of a decade, and watching the Knicks beat the 76ers.
“It was bliss,” Hernandez said. “It felt like a true NY moment, in my hospital room downtown, with my NYC baby, watching the Knicks in the final.”
Ironically, her postpartum nurse was from Philly and had fun joking with the couple about who would win.
“It’s interesting because you immediately love this newborn who is in your life for a few hours, but on the other hand, you have a moment of history happening from a team you’ve loved your entire life,” said her husband, also a native New Yorker, Matt Weeks. “So you hold your newborn and your iPhone, and you do both.”
The next morning, breakfast was served, and the Knicks recap was aptly on the TV.
Read the full article here
