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The Knicks will ride their luck all the way to the NBA Finals, according to their luckiest fan.
Manhattan basketball coach Castelli “Stelli” Laflotte, 34, knows a thing or two about having a hot hand.
He drained an epic half-court shot at a Knicks game in January, winning $1,000 cash and a new Kia SUV.
“I think luck is when hard work meets opportunity. If you’re preparing and grinding, when the opportunity comes you’re ready for it,” Laflotte told The Post.
“Knicks are going to win on Wednesday night and we’re going to the conference finals.”
After knocking out the Detroit Pistons in six games in the first round of the playoffs, the Knicks are taking on the defending champion Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semi-finals.
After roaring back from 20-point deficits to take the first two games in Beantown, the Knicks lead the series 3-1, and are just one win away from their first conference championship appearance since 2000.
They’ll face off again in Boston Wednesday night before returning to the Garden on Friday, should the series go to a game 6.
The semifinals have made for white-knuckle watching from the edge of Laflotte’s couch in Yonkers, but not quite as nerve-wracking as shooting in front of a packed Madison Square Garden, when his hands went numb from panic.
“That half-court shot was probably the most nerve-wracking thing ever,” Laflotte said.
He added: “Beforehand you’re just standing in the tunnel panicking, like, ‘please God, don’t embarrass yourself.’
“When I was taking the first four shots that lead into it, I literally couldn’t feel my hands. I was just shooting off muscle memory.”
While the Knicks have been on a heater since Coach Stelli’s heroics, the team has actually lost both games Laflotte has seen in person this year — including the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves when he made the half-court shot.
For the Knicks’ sake, the lifelong fan will keep watching from home with his son Cameron, 3.
“They lost that match when I made the shot. That was Julius Randle’s return to Madison Square Garden. Then they won like every game after that,” he said.
“I just went to game three (of the semifinals) where we lost by like 40. I went to that game and I was like maybe I should just stay home and watch them because they do good when I’m at home watching.”
Coach Stelli was full of praise for the Knicks sticking to the fundamentals and putting their bodies on the line.
“It’s been great watching them grind and work and succeed against teams people claim are better,” Laflotte said.
“We’re going to grind every single team out. The Knicks play their starters a lot and they grind you away.”
Laflotte won a 2025 Kia Telluride in the half-court competition. He liked it so much that his wife Ashley is now driving one, too.
“We had a 2013 Honda Accord and my Jeep Grand Cherokee from 2017. But the Jeep had like 150,000 miles on it because I drive for work every day and it was starting to have a lot of problems.
“We won the one car and then I asked ‘hey, if we trade in both of these cars, any chance we can get a second one?'”
When he isn’t putting up logo 3s in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans for cash and prizes at MSG, Laflotte coaches kids at Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper East Side and Riverside Park, and is the athletics director at the Rudolf Steiner School.
English (US)