Dolan also told Deadspin that Hamersky “smelled of alcohol” and that he had told Hamersky he would not be permitted into the arena for the game. Hamersky said that he did get into the game — which the Knicks actually won, 100-91 — and that although he was drinking a beer when he yelled at Dolan, he was not intoxicated. He had just come from Fordham University, where he was teaching a law class, he said.

The altercation occurred two months after an incident at the Garden in which the former Knick Charles Oakley was led away in handcuffs. Security guards confronted Oakley as he was sitting near Dolan and, according to the Garden, acting belligerently.

Dolan initially barred Oakley from returning to the Garden and also suggested, without providing any proof, that Oakley might have a problem with alcohol.

The incident on Tuesday also came two years after Dolan wrote a caustic email to a 72-year-old Knicks fan in Brooklyn who had written to him to urge him to sell the team.

“You are a sad person,” Dolan said in the email. “Start rooting for the Nets because the Knicks don’t want you.”