Anne Hathaway Picks a Knicks Championship Over a Second Oscar

Anne Hathaway would take another New York Knicks championship over a second Academy Award. She made the choice on Wednesday night on "The Tonight Show," stumbling before giving her answer to host Jimmy Fallon.

The moment came during a segment Fallon called "Best Thing Ever," a game in which the actress had to choose between two things she cherishes. Fallon asked whether she would rather win another Oscar — she is currently a Best Supporting Actress frontrunner for her performance in "The Odyssey" — or see the Knicks win another title.

"I… I… OK…." Hathaway stumbled, before choosing the Knicks.

"I'm actually, like, the way my nervous system is reacting to that choice is really intense," she explained.

Hathaway, a New York City native and lifelong Knicks fan, appeared on the show to promote her new erotic thriller "Verity." The basketball talk was inevitable. Fallon raised the meme that has followed her all season, one built on a sequence of events that Knicks fans have been happy to treat as causal.

The timeline: on April 20, the Knicks lost Game 2 of their NBA Playoffs series to the Atlanta Hawks. On May 1, "The Devil Wears Prada 2" premiered, featuring a scene in which Hathaway's character chats up Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns at a Hamptons party. The Knicks then went on a 13-game winning streak and did not lose again until Game 3 of the NBA Finals on June 9 — a game attended by Trump. Hathaway was jokingly credited by a host of observers, including the original report's author, for the change in fortune.

The Knicks themselves have leaned into the bit. On Wednesday's show, Fallon presented Hathaway, who is five months pregnant, with a signed jersey from OG Anunoby — the player she has professed to admire since he nearly crashed into her and her son while chasing a ball into the stands during a November 2024 game.

"Are you serious? Oh my god!" Hathaway exclaimed, before putting the jersey on. The team also sent a gift basket for her baby, complete with a card reading "All my best" and signed by Anunoby.

Her enthusiasm outlasted the segment. "I'm so excited about my jersey," she said at one point, playing with it instead of answering Fallon's questions.

For a performer positioned as an Oscar frontrunner, the exchange registers as more than talk-show filler. Hathaway's animated nervous-system response to a hypothetical choice between cinema's highest honor and her hometown team suggests where the promotional cycle ends and genuine fandom begins — and her "Verity" press run now doubles as a Knicks adjacency the team's marketing office has clearly noticed.