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Joe Arbitello started to watch Game 4 of the NBA Finals on TV at his home in Middle Village, Queens on Wednesday night, but he soon had to turn the game off.
“When [the Spurs] went up by 20, I shut it off,” the Christ the King boys basketball coach said by phone Friday morning.
“I took a little nap. I actually fell asleep on the couch.”
Arbitello coached Knicks backup point guard Jose Alvarado, a Brooklyn native, in high school and is a big Knicks fan, but he can’t bear the emotional highs and lows associated with these playoff games. And having his former player on the Knicks - who can win the franchise’s first NBA championship in 53 years in Game 5 on Saturday night - fills his stomach with even more butterflies.
Usually when Arbitello turns the games off, he continues to monitor them by checking X/Twitter and Instagram.
When he’s not asleep.
“If I see people on Twitter and Instagram saying [the Knicks] are making a little run, or if I see Jose’s in the game I’ll turn it on real quick and I’ll watch,” he said. “If he’s playing like garbage, I’ll turn it off.”
As the Knicks roared back from a 29-point deficit in Game 4, Arbitello woke up from his nap and turned his TV back on with about 5 minutes to go in the game.
“I was like, ‘Oh s--t, there’s a shot, I don’t know if they could do it,’” he recalled. “But [the game] got a little bit more interesting to me.”
The Christ the King coach couldn’t believe what he was seeing on Wednesday. His former player come up big in crunch time. Alvarado scored 8 points off the bench on 3-of-4 shooting with 3 assists and 2 rebounds in 16 minutes.
“I went bonkers, I woke the whole house up,” Arbitello said of his reaction to Alvarado’s play. “My kids had finals the next day. My wife was a little upset with me.”
The Knicks ultimately notched the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, 107-106, thanks to OG Anunoby’s block of De’Aaron Fox and subsequent game-winning tip-in off Jalen Brunson’s missed 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left.
Knicks +5.5 point spread is sitting at -112 on DraftKings for Saturday night’s NBA Finals Game 5 against San Antonio. Our complete DraftKings Sportsbook review will show you how to register and use their platform.
But Alvarado played a key role off the bench, and soaked up every moment of the experience in his hometown.
“I’m not gon’ sugar coat this, I was about to cry,” he told reporters. “Obviously, there’s one more. But I’m in Madison Square Garden, in the fourth quarter, playing for something special ... It was really something I couldn’t put in words.”
Said Arbitello: “I’m like a proud dad, I’m so happy for him. He deserves everything he’s getting, and it’s unrealistic to me. I’m sitting there thinking, I can’t believe this. Out of all the athletic guys I coached and all the big-name guys I coached, this is the guy in the NBA Finals doing this.”
Alvarado even earned the praise of Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.
“Alvarado was unbelievable because he can do things that the other guys can’t do, get up under you, play good defense, he plays smart, he stays within himself,” Johnson told Mike Greenberg on “Get Up” on Friday.
“And I think he was a spark plug in the fourth quarter, and give coach Mike Brown a lot of credit for saying, Landry [Shamet] is struggling, Deuce [McBride] is struggling, and let me get [Alvarado] in there and maybe he can give us something and he did.”
Alvarado has stayed in touch with Arbitello throughout the playoff run.
“On Saturday he called me,” the coach said. “My daughter graduated high school, he congratulated me, just checked in on me, which I thought was amazing out of all the people he’s gotta talk to.”
When there was an issue with tickets for Alvarado’s family for Game 3 at the Garden, he reached out to Arbitello, who hosted some 25 of Alvarado’s family and friends at his watch party that night.
“Thanks coach Arbs,” Alvarado later texted his coach.
All of this notoriety has been good not only for Alvarado, but for Arbitello and Christ the King. The coach has appeared on CNN, SNY and multiple other outlets for interviews.
“My Instagram is up to like 1.7 million views this month,” the coach said.
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“We’re up 100 kids in next year’s class [at Christ the King], we’re about to close it out. In the last two weeks we probably picked up 25 more kids doing tours and who have reached out to apply. We usually shut our admissions off in August, we’re probably gonna shut it off in the middle of July this year.”
As for Game 5 on Saturday, Arbitello has a conflict because it’s also his daughter Ava’’s high school graduation party at Christ the King.
“We are setting up a smart board to watch,” he said. “If things go bad I will go back to the party. My daughter and wife will be happy.”
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