Like the rest of New York, Jon Stewart immersed himself in celebrating the Knicks’ huge victory this past weekend. But the Daily Show host seemed to shock even himself when he aired his enthusiastic reaction Monday night.
The longtime Knicks fan facetiously depicted New Yorkers as displaying “the appropriate amount of chill” after the Knicks won: fans scaling lampposts and scaffolding, dancing aboard buses, and cheering in the streets. He was amongst them.
“It was an incredible night. All across the city, everyone was out celebrating. They were in the streets. They were in the subways. We had drum lines. We had bagpipes. We had fireworks, and we had an MTA bus driver breaking it down,” he said. “And ladies and gentlemen, while I am not technically in lightpost-scaling shape, I did attend the festivities.”
Displaying a photograph of himself, the host continued, “My friend, Mr. Robert Smigel, one of his sons, my son, my wife down in the village, outdoor watch party, pretty cool. And I handled it… I was pretty, pretty cool.”
Stewart then cut to footage of him filming himself screaming, “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!”
The late-show host covered his mouth in disbelief as his audience cheered in response. “To be fair to me, I thought I was filming the game, and I just don’t know how to work my phone,” he said, the crowd erupting in laughter. “‘Oh my God!’” Stewart mocked.
“It really sounded like I just got a perfect colonoscopy report. Oh my God! Not a polyp in sight,” he quipped.
After devoting a significant portion of his Monday night show to unpacking the win and his celebrations, Stewart responded with a heartfelt tribute to his city. “There was truly no place I would have rather been than right on the streets of New York,” the host said.
The Knicks superfan attended several games throughout the season and was also present on the fateful night when President Donald Trump attended one of the finals. Stewart revealed just how strongly the crowd reacted, booing Trump incessantly, calling the response “shocking.”
“I’ve been in Madison Square Garden, it was no more mixed than what the Spurs received,” he said in an episode of his podcast, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
“People immediately were like, ‘F— you!’”
The Knicks emerged victorious in the end, with fans initially blaming the president for the team’s one devastating loss when he attended the game.
Stewart explained the extent of the city’s energy, telling his audience on Monday, “It was an overwhelming sense of joy and solidarity and diversity and community and a good amount of crying and a lot of contact high.”
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