A Knicks superfan celebrated the NBA Finals win by visiting his father’s grave, and draping a Jalen Brunson jersey over it.
Bronx native Chris Maldonado went to see his dad Jose, who died 15 years ago at 68, at Mount Hope Cemetery in Yonkers on Tuesday — bringing the No. 11 jersey, a finals hat, Knicks logo chain and orange and blue flowers.
“We did it, Dad. You did it. You made me a Knick fan,” he says through tears on an emotional gravesite video posted on the Instagram page @newyorkers.
In the now-viral clip, he also tells his dad, “This guy right here, he brought us to the promised land,” referencing Brunson, whose jersey he placed over the tombstone.
“A lot of people hit me up saying, ‘Oh, please tell me you didn’t leave the Brunson jersey.’ And I said, ‘No, it was just for the time I spent out there,’” Maldonado, 47, told The Post, adding that he also took back the hat and chain, but left the flowers.
The Knicks were the one team he and his father — a native of Puerto Rico who came to New York at 16 and would read The Post every single day — could agree on.
“Growing up, I always liked the other team. My father was a Yankees fan, and I was a Mets fan. He was a Jets fan, and I was a Giants fan. The one team we always agreed on in my house was the Knicks,” he recalled.
“Even when I moved out and got married, we would talk on the phone, or I would go over there for the game and sit with him.”
Maldonado, who started a Knicks TikTok page this season, recalled how he and his three siblings would wait for his father to get home from work to watch Knicks games.
“My father worked a lot of jobs because there was four of us, and he was old-school. He didn’t want my mother to work,” he said.
“And when he would get home, we’d be waiting on him to watch the game.
“And we played basketball together. When I was a kid, he would take me and all my friends to the park and play ball with us.”
Jose was also a huge Patrick Ewing fan, and wouldn’t let his son but Michael Jordan sneakers because he played for the hated rival Chicago Bulls.
“Everybody wanted Jordan sneakers, and my father refused to buy me Jordans. But as soon as the Patrick Ewing sneakers came out, I had a pair,” he said, laughing.
At the gravesite, Maldonado also spoke to his mother, Madeline, who died four years ago, who would cook special dinners on game days.
“All the games you watched with us, Ma. All the times you had to hear me and Daddy screaming. And then when I moved out, I used to call the house. You used to pick up the phone so excited after a Knicks win. And I would tell you right away, ‘Let me talk to daddy,’” he said in the clip.
“She loved anything that made bonds between us. Anything that we shared that was special to us, she was all about it,” Maldonado said.
Maldonado, who now lives in New Jersey, watched the Knicks win the Finals with his wife, Vanessa, and their 28-year-old son, 6-year-old grandson and 4-year-old granddaughter.
“It was a beautiful, just magical moment,” he said.
“But if I could have been able to share that moment with my dad, that would have just made the moment perfect.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
