Ginobili gets wild reception

San Antonio’s Manu Ginobili expected it. His phone was exploding with text messages.

“I saw it coming before the game. When I started getting texts saying, ‘Listen my doctor is coming, can you say hi?’ and ‘a friend of a friend’ and ‘my brother is coming,’ ” Ginobili said after the Spurs downed the Knicks, 100-91, at the Garden on Tuesday. “I said, ‘OK, there’s going to be a lot of Argentinians here.’ I tried to come early.”

Ginobili was swarmed by adoring fans pregame. They got autographs. They snapped selfies with the Spurs star. During the game, they chanted “Manu, Manu” among other yells. They gave unbridled support.

He heard. And he repaid them with a play that was worth the price of admission.

Late in the third quarter when the Spurs were pulling away, Ginobili was beyond the arc up top. He launched a lob pass to LaMarcus Aldridge. But it never found its mark. It did, however, find the rim and went in. But there was some debate over whether or not it was a shot. Michael Beasley grabbed the ball and started going upcourt, acting like he grabbed a rebound.

“Been working on it for a long time. I finally was able to take it,” Ginobili, who scored 12 points, said in deadpan fashion about the shot that brought an 81-67 lead. “I just threw it up because [Aldridge] was being fronted. I had to do it quick because he was there for a couple seconds and I guess I threw it too hard.

“It worked perfectly. It went so clean that nobody saw it because once you make a shot like that, you want it to count. So yeah it was very awkward. Common sense I guess. The referees reviewed it.

“Whoever got the ball from the Knicks was pretty good pretending it didn’t go in.”

The shot was ruled good. The fans celebrated. Again. With more chants. “Yeah, I heard it,” Ginobili said. So did the Knicks. “He’s had a great career. Definitely one of the top outsidethe-U.S. players to ever play the game,” Kristaps Porzingis said. “I don’t know — maybe they came from Argentina.”