NEW YORK – There was an old-school vibe at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.
With the New York Knicks showing signs of life not seen since the Patrick Ewing days, the team brought in pioneering DJ Grandmaster Flash to pump up the crowd against the rival Miami Heat.
"There's an energy here. It's getting back to the way it was," Grandmaster Flash said. "It's exciting. This team, as a collective, has a chance to be good."
In an age of iPod mashups, the 53-year-old Grandmaster Flash still was spinning vinyl — the record players hooked into a laptop, of course — from his booth off a corner of the court during the pregame, timeouts and at halftime.
The DJ from the Bronx, who is one of the inventors of hip-hop, played for a star-studded crowd that included Kanye West, Q-Tip and Fat Joe.
Before the game, Amare Stoudemire was voted an All-Star starter, the first Knicks player to earn the honor since Ewing in 1997. Behind Stoudemire, the Knicks are 23-21, second in the Atlantic Division.
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