BOSTON — Pumped Knicks fans flooded into enemy territory ahead of New York’s Game 5 matchup against the Boston Celtics that could send them to the Eastern Conference Finals.
“Knicks in five, Knicks in five,” scores of orange-and-blue clad diehards chanted outside TD Garden in Beantown.
“All we can do as a Knicks fan is hope,” Queens resident Allen Edwards, 32, told The Post. “We’ve suffered for so long, we can just hope.”
Big Apple mayoral candidate Michael Blake made the trek to New England along with 20 buddies.
Knicks fans, including candidate for NYC mayor Michael Blake, outside TD Garden on Wednesday. David McGlynn
A vendor sells Celtics-colored shirts bearing anti-Knicks messages. David McGlynn
“It’s been so long of Knicks misery we gotta celebrate a day like today,” he said.
“New York is going to be on fire for all the good reasons,” the Democrat added. “New York is better when the Knicks win.”
Another member of the Knickerbocker faithful took a Greyhound bus to Boston early Wednesday for the potentially series-clinching game at TD Garden.
“It’s $600 cheaper to get here even with the bus. The Garden is a luxury,” George Quni, 23, said, referring to Madison Square Garden where the Knicks play their home games.
Heather Mammolito and son Joe outside Quincy Market, downtown Boston before Game 5. David McGlynnThe Knicks reached this stage of the postseason last year, but lost in Game 7 to the Indiana Pacers.
But now the Knicks are one game away from reaching the conference finals, where they would again meet the Pacers for a chance to reach the NBA Finals.
Basketball lovers in the Big Apple haven’t seen the Knicks in the NBA Finals since the 1999 season, and the team hasn’t won a championship since the early 1970s.
Edwards said Knicks fans can relate to Boston sports fanatics because of the long World Series title drought the Red Sox dealt with.
“They suffer with the Red Sox,” he said. “We suffer with the Knicks.”
Manhattan resident Haley Perrotte, 32, said she wanted to be in Boston to see droves of crushed Celtics — assuming the Knicks wrap up the Eastern semifinals Wednesday.
“We wanted to be here when they won,” she confidently said. “It’s also fun winning in someone else’s city.”
Her friend, Alana Janiszewski, 30, said the pair plans on going to Boston bars to “be obnoxious.”
“We love an underdog,” she said.
“If they can beat the Celtics, they can beat anyone.”
As rowdy Knicks fans mingled outside the arena before tip-off, a cyclist had some choice words as they rode by.
“F–k the Knicks! Wrong garden, bitches. Wrong garden!”
