“Tickets! Tickets!” the solitary figure called out from the steps of the arena. I passed by him on my way to the entrance, and that’s when I saw the gleam of a blade in the darkness. “You’d better take these goddam Knicks tickets off me, mister, or I swear . . .”

“Oh, thank you, but I’ve already got one!” I replied with a smile, handing my ticket to the attendant. It was the year 2018, and all was well at Madison Square Garden.

As I headed inside, and then through several Anti-Oakley Security Checkpoints, I marvelled at the changes the Owner had made to the Garden. The aisles had once swarmed with people, mutant under-dwellers who emerged from the depths of Penn Station. Now those same aisles stood empty and serene, like a temple, which was only fitting for this hardwood mecca, this site of some of the most storied feats in all of sport. Like the championship in the year—

I couldn’t quite recall. But who had time for the past when the present was so bright? I made it to my seat just in time for tipoff. The whistle blew, the referee moved to toss the ball into the air, then, suddenly, Phil Jackson strode onto the floor.

“Before we get under way, I wanted to say that someone on this team is a toxic pile of pure, radioactive trash.” He paused, looked over at Carmelo Anthony, pointed at Carmelo Anthony, and went on, “That’s an ancient Zen koan I’ve always admired and thought I’d share.”

His pep talk certainly seemed to inspire the players, who raced out ahead of their opponents, the Long Island Cablevision Is Goods. The Cablevision Is Goods were the divisional rivals of the Knicks in the new league the Owner had founded. It only made sense: having accomplished roughly all they set out to accomplish in the N.B.A., the Knicks would face new challenges against competition more worthy of their talents. Also, no mean chants about the Owner were allowed.

On paper, the Knicks matched up well against the Cablevision Is Goods, whose lineup consisted of someone who had once participated in a halftime free-throw contest, two guys from the Garden’s custodial staff, and the mascot of the New York Liberty, in costume. Their fifth player was out sick.

The game was well in hand for the Knicks by halftime. Carmelo was putting on the kind of show fans had come to expect: twenty-two points on four hundred shots. Derrick Rose, fresh off a stint in the I.C.U. following the explosion of both his knees, was doing what he did best: unnerving opponents with his vacant, disinterested presence. The long-term deal the Knicks had signed him to was looking better and better. Kristaps Porzingis was being kept off-site in a secure location.

It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that anything started to go wrong.

First, that free-throw-contest participant suddenly got hot from three. Apparently, now that he had access to the Garden around the clock, he was putting in a lot of time. It was frustrating that the Knicks had given him the tools to develop like that, but how were they supposed to know, since none of their own players had ever voluntarily practiced before, even once?

Moments later, Phil Jackson started to throw batteries onto the court. I think it was a kind of Zen metaphor thing about keeping energy levels up? But the players may have misinterpreted it, and Carmelo went so far as to sub himself out and crawl into the protective shelter he had built on the sideline out of folding chairs and old foam fingers.

And just like that, the Knicks’ ten-point lead, which had once seemed insurmountable, vanished. When time ran out, the Knicks had lost.

An ominous silence fell over the Garden. Looking back, I wish to Dolan I had shouted, “Fellow-Knickerbocker fans! Think of all we have! A Lithuanian! And headquarters in a city that good basketball players visit for fun, so let’s figure out ways to trap them and make them play for us! If we worked together, it would be so easy to trap them!”

But I stayed silent, looking on as the people around me rose up, and, with a collective shriek, rushed toward the Owner’s fortifications. That’s when I saw that they had seized the cannons—somehow, they had gotten ahold of the T-shirt cannons.

What came next, well—you don’t forget a thing like that.