New York Knicks legend Earl “The Pearl” Monroe visited Long Island on Wednesday ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals to rally suburban fans behind the hometown team.
Monroe, a Hall of Famer and member of the Knicks team to win a championship in 1973, appeared at the Nassau County municipal building in Mineola, talking politics and reminiscing with County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is also the GOP-nominee in this year’s governor’s race.
“It’s such a nice day to see so many fans,” Monroe, 81, told the crowd.
“After having won the championship back in ’73, we haven’t had a real chance to come out and see people as excited as everyone has been about this particular team,” said Monroe, who traveled from his home in Harlem to attend the event.
“We have all these champions — the Mets, the Yankees, the hockey teams and so forth — but New York is not New York unless the Knicks are doing it,” he said to cheers from the crowd.
Once his speech concluded, Monroe shared his prediction on the series exclusively with The Post.
“I don’t have a prediction, per se, but I like Knicks in six because it rhymes,” he said, smiling.
“To win a championship would mean so much to so many people — they deserve it and the city needs to have it as well,” he said.
After the rallying call to fans, The Pearl headed back into Blakeman’s chambers, where the pair reminisced over the good old days and spoke about Harlem’s Gang of Four — the legendary political coalition of David Dinkins, Charlie Rangel, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton that reshaped New York politics in the 1970s.
Dinkins went on to become the city’s first black mayor, Rangel went onto Congress and chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Paterson became a state senator and secretary of state, and Sutton the longtime Manhattan borough president and political kingmaker of Harlem.
“I’m a student of history,” Blakeman said, adding that they were a “powergroup.”
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