Alana Haim Reacts to Criticism of Her Knicks Fandom Despite Being Born and Raised in Los Angeles

Alana Haim is a proud Valley girl — but that didn’t stop her from creating custom gear to support the New York Knicks while sitting courtside at the 2026 NBA Finals. 

The musician and actress — who was born and raised in Los Angeles 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 love 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 think, maybe the greatest basketball game ever played, and I’m hoping they bring home the championship, because they’re such an incredible team.”

The Knicks erased a 29-point deficit, the largest 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 New York and Los Angeles as fierce, storied adversaries, Alana doesn’t see it that way. 

“I think we can 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 really just want people to go out and make shirts,” she told Vogue. “It’s such a fun hobby, and it’s so 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 really just want people to do more arts and crafts!”

Alana peeled back the layers of her creative process, revealing that the shirts were all the brainchild of Swift. 

“I got a text from Taylor that was really the text that you want to get as an amateur screen printer. She said, ‘I want to wear this shirt to the game, can you make it for me?’” Alana said. “And I was like, ‘I thought you would never ask, this is my dream.’ Whenever I start out a session with a friend, I go, ‘Let’s talk about fonts, let’s talk about sizing,’ and [Swift] came up with Stevie Knicks.”

Alana continued, “We were kind of going back and forth with these puns; we really just wanted to have fun, because we were so excited that we were going to the game, and I thought it would make people laugh, so we put them on shirts and all decided to wear them.”