Knicks tickets for this afternoon’s Game 3 Garden showdown are hotter than Georgia asphalt – and as hard to get your hands on as a hunted Hawk.
“Concierges from all over New York City have been calling all day,” one local broker told The Post. “People are desperate.”
One brazen Internet site, Entertainment Ticketfinder, was peddling “VIP courtside rows” for “$2,500-$3,500.”
Ordinary upper-level seats, whose face values range from $22 to $55, were being sold yesterday for $75 to $150.
But if you want to sit close enough to laugh at courtside fixture Spike Lee you’ll have to cough up a bundle.
The Post found courtside seats (Rows 1 through 6) for the matchup selling for $1,500 a pop – from a Georgia broker called 24/7 Tickets.
“That’s my best seat,” the broker told us. “It doesn’t get any better than that,” he insisted cheerfully.
Some ticket brokers who are normally stocked with seats said they were sold out.
Outside Madison Square Garden yesterday only a few, wary scalpers were plying their trade, selling $150 tickets for seats in the 100 and 200 sections.
Another Internet broker, Ticketdog, summed up the desperation for Knicks ducats about as well as you could expect from an online scalper.
He broke down his seating sales chart as follows: “Top Dog: Give me your best seats!” “Hot Dog: I want to sit good!” and “Junkyard Dog: Just get me in the door!”
The mood in Atlanta yesterday was grim. Ticket brokers contacted by The Post down South were sounding decidedly unhappy about the Knicks-Hawks series.
Most aren’t selling tickets yet for Game 5, the next match scheduled in Atlanta.
Asked why not, one broker glumly replied, “Gotta win one first.”
Another admitted, “Nobody down here thinks there’s going to be a Game 5.”