NEW YORK — They were running and hugging, screaming unintelligible words and chanting “OG! OG! OG!” in the key of ecstasy.They were bouncing on their feet late Wednesday night, while some remained as still as humanly possible to steady their phones so that their recordings wouldn’t look as if an earthquake had just hit midtown Manhattan. Though it felt that way when the New York Knicks completed their 107-106 win over the San Antonio Spurs — as if nearly 20,000 people had rocked the concrete foundation of Madison Square Garden. Shaking the ground with their feet, their voices and their greatest weapon of all, their pure and passionate fandom, in celebration of an electric Game 4.These were the fans who’ll forever talk about the time they witnessed the greatest comeback in an NBA Finals game. Outside of the building and funneled through the city’s barricades were even more fans. Though they didn’t sacrifice their firstborn to pay for tickets, they were just as authentic with their love for the orange and blue.Throughout the four games of the series, however, these people — the ones inside the Garden, out on the streets, or even the Jackals in San Antonio — haven’t been the loudest fans.The knuckleheads have.They are the one blight eating at this instant classic NBA Finals. They’re not exactly “fans,” per se. But rather, the village idiots. They’re performers and content chasers. They behave like stunt artists, thirsty for attention, or like future felons, documenting their assaults. Many of them are young and male. All of them are followers with the combined brain capacity of a curious lemming discovering a nice ledge.They have created a dilemma for the New York Police Department, many of whom clock in for their night shift outside MSG wearing riot helmets, and have forced the actual participants in this series to acknowledge their presence. A video of Taylor Swift — the “Stevie Knicks” fan — jumping up and down at the end of Game 4 might get millions of views, but clips of those who lingered on the New York streets with chaos in mind will flood the algorithm for days.Granted, they are still a small percentage of the overall number of fans, but they are quite noticeable on social media and they are running and slugging, spewing unprintable words and harmonizing to the sound of stupid. And unfortunately for this beautiful basketball happening before us, the most visible fans in the foreground keep risking it all just to be seen.It started in Game 1 in San Antonio, when a young adult male rushed the court to get a selfie with Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs’ big man appeared to be amused by the stunt, or just plain shocked. Even so, there’s nothing cute or funny about someone breaking past security and reaching the players so effortlessly.Whatever possessed the man to run onto the court — clout is an addiction, kids — at least the selfie guy didn’t try to rip off Wemby’s jersey. When the series shifted to the Big Apple for Games 3 and 4, the antics turned darker with the wave of hooliganism.In continuing a viral trend from last season, throngs of troublemakers, with nothing better to do with their time, have taken to besieging unsuspecting rival fans. Usually, the big, tough crowd chooses one mark at a time, attacking and tearing the jersey right off his body. As unsettling as it is to watch one human being get swallowed up in a crush of violence, it’s incredibly alarming that evidence exists in the first place. Watch any of those videos, any one, and notice the hordes of cell phones held up by those drooling with delight.Possibly, the jersey-shredders wouldn’t have it any other way. Our world has changed, and it’s ruled by this idea that antics must be captured and posted immediately, or streamed to strangers before they scroll on to the next morsel of entertainment. So this crowd — a minority compared to the Knicks fans who just want to root for the team — works hard to give the internet what it wants, by tearing to pieces someone else’s black No. 1 Spurs jersey.“I feel we’re here to play a basketball game. That’s the main thing,” said Spurs guard Julian Champagnie, who grew up in New York. “I feel like for the fans it should never be that serious where you have to jump people, beat people up, follow people home, stuff like that. It’s just a basketball game at the end of the day. Whether we win, they win, it doesn’t really matter.”As Knicks fans celebrated early into Thursday morning, still in disbelief of the Spurs’ collapse from a 29-point lead, and OG Anunoby’s tip-in that will be immortalized on bootleg T-shirts and sold around Times Square by Thursday night, a few examples of nonsense marred the merriment. Wembanyama had to be shielded from thrown items as he tried to enter his team’s hotel. Closer to the arena, a video showed a loud, explosive device erupting and causing mass panic. Another video showed police handcuffing two men.The video of the explosion seemed frightening, but Knicks fan Richard Toliver IV and his father didn’t experience the hysteria. Had they walked down a different street, they might have. Although Toliver constantly bellowed “Knicks in five!” while making his way down 7th Avenue, his father muttered very little. Richard Toliver III, a Harlem native, was wearing his black No. 44 George Gervin jersey.“I’ve been a Spurs fan since the ’80s,” Toliver III explained.He attended Game 4 with his Knicks-loving son with the intention of cheering on his favorite team in enemy territory. And he had no intention of getting his jersey snatched off. When I spotted the Tolivers, I asked if their postgame walk to the subway could be dangerous.“I’m dangerous,” the younger Toliver quipped.During the stroll, fans exiting MSG flooded the streets with their songs, and the son joined in with the chorus of “Knicks in five!” His pops, as cool as the Ice Man himself while weathering this blue-and-orange hell, shook his head. He took his “L” like a champ, and no one seemed to care about the color of his jersey.As the duo inched closer to 28th Street, the crowd grew in size, and more people began to notice Toliver III. A young woman outside a cannabis dispensary gave him two thumbs down. Beneath a scaffolding, a young man in an orange Carmelo Anthony Syracuse jersey asked: “Is that a Spurs jersey?” Toliver IV diffused any tension the best way possible: “Knicks in five,” he yelled back. Steps away from their subway entrance, a young woman passed by, checked out the older man in black and looked concerned.“Be careful,” she warned in a sing-songy voice.“Yes,” Toliver IV responded.“We good. We good,” Toliver III promised.He then wrapped his right arm around his father’s shoulder. Then the Tolivers, two true fans, made their way through the swarm of bodies lingering around and gawking up. Why had so many people stop to stare? Someone had climbed to the top of the street light and pulled out his phone.