On a late October day in 2021, hours after the New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics in double overtime in their season opener, the rest of the world got a window into what current Knick Landry Shamet recently called “a specific species of human that should be studied.”The viral video of Knicks fans celebrating the victory with now-iconic phrases such as “Bing Bong” and “KD, don’t you regret not coming to the Kniiiiccccckkkkks?” was filmed by Sidetalk, a self-described “one-minute street show” involving man-on-the-street interviews across New York City. In the years since that initial video, it has become something of a tradition for Knicks fans to congregate outside of Madison Square Garden and celebrate wildly after big wins. Sidetalk regularly releases videos from these scenes, most recently after the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers Monday to advance to their first NBA Finals in 27 years.Sidetalk allowed The Athletic to tag along while filming scenes after the Knicks’ Game 2 victory. We then spoke with Trent Simonian, the creator of Sidetalk and a film student at New York University, about Sidetalk’s breakthrough video, how he finds the authentic fans and how his task has changed as more people have caught on to the postgame scene.Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity.This thing has completely taken off. How did it start?It started for fun. We did not expect that there was going to be massive crowds outside of Madison Square Garden.We showed up one time when the Knicks were still in their horrible phase, where they had just broken .500 in 2021. We showed up, there was like 16 fans outside of the Garden. We were still wearing masks, and we were just like, ‘OK, the Knicks are starting to win a little bit. Let’s go talk to the fans, see what they have to say.’ They were jumping around a little bit, and then we’re like, ‘Oh, that was actually really funny.’Then they made the playoffs. The Trae Young thing happened, we went out there, they started going a little crazier. And then we realized, ‘OK, we might have a little something here. These Knicks fans are pretty passionate.’ They struggled for a little while, and they’re really excited to break out of the shell.And as you’ve seen now, year after year, there’s just more and more people outside of the Garden.