Alana Haim is a proud Valley girl — but that didn’t stop her from creating custom gear to support the Recent York Knicks while sitting courtside on the 2026 NBA Finals.
The musician and actress — who was born and raised in Los Angeles along along with her sisters and bandmates, Danielle and Este Haim — partied with friend Taylor Swift at Game 4 of the finals on Wednesday, June 10, which didn’t sit well with some critics who called them out for jumping on the Knicks bandwagon.
“I’m from L.A., and I like the Lakers, but I also love the Knicks,” Alana, 34, told Vogue in a story published on Thursday, June 11. “It’s just such an incredible season for them, and it was such an honor to root for them. That was, I believe, possibly the best basketball game ever played, and I’m hoping they bring about home the championship, because they’re such an incredible team.”
The Knicks erased a 29-point deficit, the most important in NBA Finals history, and defeated the San Antonio Spurs 107-106 in Game 4, putting the franchise one win away from their first NBA title since 1973.
While most sports fans view the cities of Recent York and Los Angeles as fierce, storied adversaries, Alana doesn’t see it that way.
“I believe we will all be friends,” she argued. “There’s no animosity there.”
At Game 4, Alana, her sisters and Swift, 36, were decked out in custom, pop culture-inspired Knicks shirts that Alana made by hand.
Alana’s read “Knickelback,” while sisters Este and Danielle rocked “Knickole Kidman” and “Knickolas Cage,” respectively, and Swift’s said “Stevie Knicks.”
“If I’m getting anything out of this experience, it’s that I actually just want people to exit and make shirts,” she told Vogue. “It’s such a fun hobby, and it’s really easy to do. I’m a Sagittarius, so there’s a graveyard of arts and crafts that I’ve done, from needlepoint to bedazzling. I actually just want people to do more arts and crafts!”
Alana peeled back the layers of her creative process, revealing that the shirts were all of the brainchild of Swift.
“I got a text from Taylor that was really the text that you ought to get as an amateur screen printer. She said, ‘I need to wear this shirt to the sport, are you able to make it for me?’” Alana said. “And I used to be like, ‘I believed you’ll never ask, that is my dream.’ Every time I start out a session with a friend, I’m going, ‘Let’s discuss fonts, let’s discuss sizing,’ and [Swift] got here up with Stevie Knicks.”
Alana continued, “We were type of going forwards and backwards with these puns; we actually just desired to rejoice, because we were so excited that we were going to the sport, and I believed it could make people laugh, so we put them on shirts and all decided to wear them.”