It was agony and ecstasy outside Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, before game five in the Eastern Conference Finals against the loathed Indiana Pacers. The Knicks went into the evening facing elimination, down three games to one. The operators of a video-camera setup invited fans to record derisive videos about Tyrese Haliburton, currently Public Enemy No. 1 in the five boroughs. (Or at least on Seventh Avenue.) A fan with face tats was recording himself strutting south, attracting a parade of flexing, cheering bros. “Dax is right; there’s so many people smoking weed,” a suit blurted into his phone.

The Knicks were so bad for so long that in 2022, when the team won one first-round game against the Atlanta Hawks, fans acted like they’d taken home the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Since

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