Come for the Kanye West version. Stay for the “Bing Bong” version.
There are few things in sports more exciting than a buzzer-beater to win a game and Knicks wing RJ Barrett reminded us why on Thursday.
After a hot start to the season, New York currently has a losing record in 2021-22. If the season ended today, they would have to win multiple play-in games in order to make the postseason. It’s not exactly the step forward they had hoped to make after an exciting playoff run last year.
That’s why, when facing against their longtime rival Boston Celtics on Jan. 6, it was a must-win game. But fortunately for the Knicks, as the clock expired, Barrett sealed the deal with a jaw-dropping 3-pointer to win the game.
It’s exactly the morale boost that the franchise — and more importantly, the fan base — needed. As part of the celebration, there were some awesome edits of the buzzer-beater that circulated on social media. One of my favorites was the supercut that included every angle captured on camera.
However, nothing beats the contribution from Knicks Film School’s Andrew Claudio. He edited Barrett’s game-winning shot over Kanye West’s hit 2010 song “Runaway” from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
As the low pitch piano notes build, that song does a tremendous job of building suspense until the accompaniment kicks in around thirty seconds into the track.
Claudio did a fantastic job of synching the game-winner to reach its climax just as the song takes on a new life with more instrumentation and power. It’s a nearly flawless edit.
However, I couldn’t help but notice someone respond to Claudio telling him that he should have used the “Bing Bong” version of the song courtesy of @misc_mashups on TikTok. It’s only fitting considering that those two words have become the catchphrase of the team!
I was pretty surprised to learn that there was a “Bing Bong” edit of the Kanye West song. But the rules of the internet dictate that if something exists, there is probably a version of it in your fandom.
So if Claudio had decided to use the “Coney West” version of the song (which auto-tunes this Sidetalk video to create Kanye’s music, even including the iconic line that mistakenly calls the U.S. president Joe Byron) when he made the edit, it would have likely looked a little something like this:
At this point in the season, the most diehard Knicks fans might feel “Bing Bong” is a bit overplayed. Their rallying cry was used against them when they began losing more often, which is never fun.
However, if you’re a Knicks fan, it’s hard to dislike anything when it’s edited over Barrett’s first game-winner of his career.
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