NEW YORK — Let’s face it, wild and crazy as it was, Tuesday night really started on Monday night for thousands of customers inside Madison Square Garden. NBA stars from other places have long described New Yorkers as educated basketball fans, sometimes to excess, but this much was clear:The Garden crowd for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was smart enough to understand exactly what it saw in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. The moment Spurs wonderkind Victor Wembanyama pulled up from 28 feet against the Thunder late in his own masterpiece theater, looking as comfortable as Steph Curry from the same range, everything changed, dramatically, in the world of basketball.Knicks fans had the same reaction as Thunder fans. How are we going to beat that?How is anyone going to beat that?Maybe the Thunder will figure out a way — they are the defending champs for a reason, and they do suit up their own all-time great in two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, whom the Knicks could have drafted instead of Kevin Knox (different regime, different regret, different story for a different night). Either way, Game 1 out West was contested at such an absurdly high level that the loyalists who filled the Garden for Game 1 back East had to be wondering if the Knicks really had it in them to beat whichever titan emerges on the other side of the NBA Finals draw.And then the closing seven and a half minutes of the fourth quarter happened. Jalen Brunson happened. As if to answer the surreal events in Oklahoma City, where it sure seemed that a 22-year-old giant had executed a hostile takeover of the sport, the Knicks erased a 22-point deficit and beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in overtime, 115-104.So much had to go right for the home team and wrong for the Cavs that it was as improbable a postseason result as any witness could fathom. Blowing a 22-point lead in half a quarter, with so much at stake, just is not possible. No way. No how.But Brunson, who finished with 38 points, kept blowing past James Harden and making shots, and Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson kept refusing to call timeout. Inside the final minute of regulation, Landry Shamet made a 3-pointer to tie that bounced above and around the rim enough to summon the ghost of Tyrese Haliburton’s Game 1 Hail Mary last year, when the Garden wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the result.