Big Apple Knicks fans are getting creative, cooking up absurd schemes to blow off work on Thursday for the NBA champions’ ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes.
Some will call in sick, some won’t show up at work and hope for the best, while others will hope their bosses understand — but they’re not missing the massive celebrations for their hometown heroes.
“I’m gonna start coughing on Wednesday, get the next fever,” TV studio tech Kenny Rosa said Monday. “And then as soon as I clock out, I’m calling out for the next day, calling out sick.”
“It’s a mental health day,” said Yale Club worker Sam Suarez. “It is a mental health day, and you got sick days, and you just call in and say, ‘Hey, listen. I gotta go.’ And that’s all.
“You know, sometimes you don’t have to explain because in the lie, they can find out.”
New Jersey native Justin said he snuck into the city for the big parade after skipping out on his job — in Seattle. “I am unwell and I will be back when I’m feeling better,” he told his bosses.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the Knicks’ victory parade could prove to be the largest in the city’s history, and it’s a can’t miss for diehard fans who just saw the hometown team win its first NBA title in 53 years.
The Game 5 win over the hated San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night launched the city into a massive celebration that has yet to subside — and will be capped with Thursday’s parade.
For long-suffering fans, it could be worth risking your job.
“I’m calling out, respectfully,” one Harlem fan told The Post.
Asked what he would tell his boss, he said: “My dog got sick.”
Another Knicks fan said he planned to use a ploy that worked in the past, saying he “would make myself fall down on purpose in front of my bosses,” and claim the “injury” would keep him home.
Long Island sanitation worker David Polonia had another plan in mind.
“I told him I had a doctor’s appointment,” he said. “He didn’t seem too happy about it, but he accepted it.”
However, more than a few fans said they’ll be honest about the whole thing and hope for the best.
“Everyone knows, I think my employer shows,” lifelong fan David Dweck said. “This is what it is. We are living in New York and love the Knicks…. We’re calling out of work and it is what it is.
“I’m saying that I’m coming to the parade,” Dweck added. “I love my Knicks and I will suffer the consequences a little later.”