You have to be good. You must be irritating. And you have to know how to win the hearts of Knicks fans.

It takes a special type of player to achieve villain status at Madison Square Garden, a player with the unique skills that make every fan in the arena chant your name preceded by a one-syllable, obscene verb.

On Wednesday night, Trae Young, one of the most reviled players in recent Knicks history, returned to the Garden for his first elimination game since leading the Hawks to a first-round win in just five games in 2021. The winner of the game on Wednesday evening should enable a place in the semi-finals of the NBA Cup on Saturday in Las Vegas.

It didn’t matter that not a single active player on the Knicks’ roster Wednesday was on the team that lost that first-round series to the Hawks. They are not the players who have elevated Young to the same villain status as Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller and Joel Embiid.

Rather, it’s all about the fans. New Yorkers so reviled Young during that series that his obscene chanting transcended his roots and broke out at games that had nothing to do with Young, including a playoff game against the Philadelphia 76ers last year and even a Yankees game in 2022.

After Hawks practice on Monday, Young indicated he was a little confused by the whole phenomenon when Jameelah Johnson of atlantahawksfans.com asked him if it was fun to play the villain at the Garden.

“I don’t like being a bad guy,” Young said. “I don’t like being like that or achieving that goal, but if that’s what it has to be, that’s what it has to be. This is not who I want to be” or who I am in any way. I don’t think I’m turning into a villain.

Maybe he sees it that way, but Knicks fans may remember something else, which is why it’s worth looking back at how this whole thing started.

In coach Tom Thibodeau’s first season with the Knicks, the COVID-19-shortened 1920-21 season, the No. 4 Knicks drew in the playoffs against the No. 5 Hawks. Atlanta immediately stole home-court advantage after Young hit a game-winning floater to win Game 1. After firing the shot with 0.9 seconds left, Young immediately turned to the crowd and raised his finger to his lips to silence the crowd that had been chanting the obscene chant earlier.

To make matters worse, Young noted in his postgame interview with a mischievous grin that “it got real quiet at the end.”

Thibodeau said it was only natural in today’s sports world that a player like Young, who hurt the Knicks in big games, would be cast as a villain.

“It’s like I think where our league is, the sport in general right now, whether it’s the profile with the social media and all the different things that are going on,” Thibodeau said. “If you have a great fan base, which we do,” it makes sense – there’s always that element. If you look back over the years there are a number of players who are really good. There is history and there are playoff battles, it lends itself to that.”

Since that playoff series, Young continued to be mocked in every game against the Knicks. This even happened earlier this year in Atlanta, where scores of Knicks fans were in attendance. After the game, which Atlanta won 121-116, Young certainly seemed to settle into his role as the villain.

“I hope that these New York fans find their way to the exit very, very quickly,” Young said during his on-court interview after that game in November.

It doesn’t matter that the Hawks team that faced the Knicks on Wednesday only has two top scorers – Young and Bogdan Bogdanovic – left from that 2021 playoff team. It doesn’t matter that the game was a manufactured trophy and doesn’t actually have much significance in terms of season planning.

The animosity between Knicks fans and Young lives on.

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in Newsday’s sports department. She has been covering sports in New York for more than 20 years.