NEW YORK — After the New York Knicks’ victory against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night, which sent New York to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999, Knicks guard Landry Shamet was asked to explain the mindset of Knicks fandom.

Even at Rocket Arena, in downtown Cleveland, the chants of Knicks fans threatened to drown out the hometown supporters for most of the game.

“Knicks fans are a specific species of human that should be studied,” Shamet said. “They are special, man. They are crazy.”

If nothing else, they are patient. After 27 often terrible years, the Knicks have rewarded their fans with 11 straight playoff victories, including Monday’s blowout over the Cavaliers, 130-93.

The euphoria spread all over the city. In midtown Manhattan, thousands of fans blocked traffic outside Madison Square Garden, even though the game was in Ohio and the outdoor watch parties at the Garden had been suspended because of rowdy fans. Their opponent is yet to be determined, and the Knicks will probably be the underdogs, but the fans did not care.

“I’m feeling awesome,” Tieheem Austin, 51, said at a watch party at Richie’s in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “New York is here!” He circulated through the bar dabbing up patrons, almost all of them decked out in Knicks swag. “New York versus everybody. And we’re going to win this. This has been long overdue.”

The center of the celebration was an 18-block stretch in Manhattan from Radio City Music Hall, where fans gathered to watch the game on a large screen, down to Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play their home games. Several thousand fans paid $10 for the watch party at Radio City, which is owned by the Garden.

When the game ended, fans poured onto Sixth Avenue to celebrate. Someone yelled, “MSG!” and the boisterous brigade headed south to the Garden, where over the past few years fans have ritualized playoff victories — home games and away games — by flooding the area, blocking intersections, dancing, hugging, drinking alcohol, climbing lampposts.

On Monday, some men carried fans on their shoulders. Others walked straight into the streets, stopping traffic as the block filled with a cacophony of car horns. Some frustrated drivers honked for fans to get out of the way, while others beeped in solidarity, fist-bumping fans as they flooded past their vehicles.

One young Knicks fan climbed onto the hood of a yellow taxi stuck in traffic on 48th Street. The driver got out and yelled, demanding the man come down. He did, then tapped the driver on the head and joined the southward march.

As the crowd headed south, where police barricades lined the sidewalks for blocks, two men yelled, “The NYPD can’t stop us!” The Empire State Building, lit in Knicks-appropriate orange and blue, glowed in the background.

Some of these fans were not even alive the last time the Knicks went to the Finals and lost to the San Antonio Spurs. Coincidentally, the Spurs are now competing with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference for the right to face the Knicks. That best-of-seven series is tied, two games apiece. Game 1 of the Finals is scheduled for June 3.

No team in the New York region unites fans quite the way the Knicks do. The Nets are a bit of an outlier in Brooklyn (where they relocated from New Jersey in 2012) and the New York Liberty of the WNBA, which actually won their championship two years ago, do not have as long a history as the Knicks. Baseball loyalties are divided between the New York Yankees and New York Mets, and football, soccer and hockey fans all split their allegiances among multiple metro teams.

Adding to the mounting excitement for fans is their team’s dismal recent history. The Knicks have been mostly terrible in the 21st century and even further back; the team has not won a championship since their second title, in 1973. For Knicks fans, who are used to eventual bad news, Monday’s win — their 11th in a row in the playoffs — felt like a cosmic shift.

Some even compared it to the mayoral election victory of Zohran Mamdani.

“It’s just like, dude, this is a good place right now,” Sam Lavine, 26, a researcher in environmental and energy policy, said at Richie’s in Brooklyn. “Since Zohran won, it’s just like — it’s in the air, you know?”

It wasn’t long before Madison Square Garden was awash in blue and orange, as hundreds gathered outside its entrance alongside Penn Station. The crowd grew by the minute, and at one point, officers struggled to direct people leaving a sold-out concert that night at Madison Square Garden by Indian musician Diljit Dosanjh through the outpouring of Knicks fans.

The smell of marijuana hung in the air, while broken glass bottles and crushed cans littered the sidewalks outside the arena. “We want Wemby,” the crowd chanted in unison, referring to the San Antonio Spurs star, Victor Wembanyama.

Finally, around 11:40 p.m., a police officer stepped into the crowd, confiscated a bottle of tequila, and emptied it onto the sidewalk as fans gathered around. “Bedtime!” the officer shouted at them.

Other officers quickly joined, and the crowd was invited to leave the area. Soon, announcements over loudspeakers warned fans to move along or risk arrest. By midnight the crowd had dispersed.

“The way I feel right now, it’s like almost like redemption,” said Joel Armstrong, 41, a finance worker from East Flatbush, who was at Richie’s in Brooklyn. “A good feeling for the city. We need something like this right now.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By David Waldstein/Vincent Alban
c. 2026 The New York Times Company