\n<\/p>\n
Like so many New Yorkers, Kevin and Kayvon, 38 and 29, had been hanging on every moment of the playoffs in a state of suspended disbelief. Sitting at home, Kevin said, \u201cI was making sure every night I was locked in, speakers dialed up. It had to sound like MSG in here.\u201d Kayvon was putting in overtime at his night job at a group home for adults with intellectual disabilities\u2014he brought his own television and Amazon Fire TV Stick to the office. \u201cSometimes my clients watch the game with me,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes they know, once it\u2019s game time, Okay, we\u2019re gonna leave the staff alone for right now. I get them little snacks or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory is a weight off the shoulders of New Yorkers who never thought they would live to see the day. \u201cIt was a lot of jokes,\u201d Kayvon said. \u201cA lot of being quiet in certain moments when they talking about championships. It was a lot of bad moments, but you know how New York fans are. We\u2019re loyal no matter what.\u201d As anyone who stepped outside on Saturday night could attest, the relief was palpable in the streets. After the Hills left the watch party, they spent the next several hours roaming midtown Manhattan, celebrating with strangers at a nearby bar, and waving a Knicks towel at a honking mass of cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next thing you know,\u201d Kevin said, \u201cit\u2019s six o\u2019clock in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The image of Kevin\u2019s and Kayvon\u2019s faces on VF<\/em>\u2019s cover is familiar to revelers across the city who turned their street corners into watch parties and their building fa\u00e7ades into projector screens. They seemed possessed, Califano told me, by the same forces affecting almost everyone he photographed that night as he and I bounced around Manhattan: \u201ca sense of camaraderie and collective euphoria that I have only witnessed maybe once or twice before in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Photographer Jack Califano<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI got the sense,\u201d he continued, \u201cthat they, like a lot of longtime Knicks fans in the city, felt that their belief in the Knicks was a kind of spiritual obligation\u2014that if they fell short in supporting the team in this exact moment, they risked the entire city\u2019s hopes and dreams. They were screaming and cheering like it mattered on a metaphysical level. It was easy to capture.\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of our call, the Hills were riffing back and forth. \u201cNew York is like the steel city, the gritty city\u2014that\u2019s everything they say about New York,\u201d Kevin said. But on this occasion, \u201cNew York, it was a very friendly New York, a very Knick-friendly New York.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n