The Knicks weren\u2019t exactly playing their best basketball against the Pacers through three quarters on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n
And Stephen A. Smith was letting them know about it as directly as he could.<\/p>\n
The ESPN \u201cFirst Take\u201d panelist took to X during Game 4 and called out the team \u2014 which had 14 turnovers through 36 minutes \u2014 and he called for both Mikal Briges and Josh Hart to get it together, tagging their handles. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe @nyknicks desperately need @mikal_bridges to step up if they\u2019re going to win this game. Missed shots. Turnovers. ill-timed decisions. #Damn [Come] on bro,\u201d he wrote. \u201cYou too @joshhart. The @nyknicks need him too. Not taking the damn night off with one mishap after another! What the Hell is going on!\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Hart of the New York Knicks dribbles the ball during the game against the Indiana Pacers during Game 4 of the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals on May 27, 2025 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hart and Bridges combined for just 15 points through three quarters as the team trailed by 11 points going into the final quarter.<\/p>\n
Game 4 was a huge swing game for the Knicks, which probably factored more into Smith, a well-known fan of the team, getting riled up over the team\u2019s play.<\/p>\n
After losing two heartbreakers on home court, the Knicks rallied in Game 3 to make it a 2-1 series before Tuesday night. <\/p>\n
Mikal Bridges of the New York Knicks dribbles the ball during the game against the Indiana Pacers during Game 4 of the 2025 Eastern Conference Finals on May 27, 2025 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.
NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Stephen A. Smith attends a playoff basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena on May 8, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images<\/p>\n
But after Game 1\u2019s 14-point choke job, ex-NFL defensive end Chris Canty said on ESPN Radio that the Knicks were maybe suffering from what he called \u201cthe curse of Stephen A. Smith\u201d for his incessant trash talk of the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
Smith took exception to the trolling. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s that damn Chris Canty, I\u2019m telling you right now, he does a phenomenal job for us on ESPN Radio every morning,\u201d Smith said on \u201cFirst Take\u201d this week. \u201cBut ever since he got that damn radio show, he\u2019s gotten more evil. That\u2019s what he\u2019s done. That\u2019s what he turned into. Chris Canty used to be this nice big teddy bear\u2026and then all of a sudden, he gets the morning radio show and he is just slicing and dicing people up \u2013 calling folks frauds and everything like that. And now he\u2019s trolling me. I\u2019m gonna get him.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Knicks don\u2019t come back to take the series, it\u2019ll be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks weren\u2019t exactly playing their best basketball against the Pacers through three quarters on Tuesday night. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,327,6,11,197,191,66,2086,2603],"class_list":{"0":"post-60742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-josh-hart","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs","12":"tag-nba-playoffs-2025","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-sports-entertainment","16":"tag-stephen-a-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114583264772530793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}