{"id":617695,"date":"2026-02-22T12:08:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T12:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/617695\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T12:08:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T12:08:22","slug":"shaquille-oneal-karl-anthony-towns-interview-quickly-turns-awkward-after-knicks-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/617695\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal-Karl-Anthony Towns interview quickly turns awkward after Knicks’ win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not all star players have the same personality.<\/p>\n

That became abundantly clear during Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s postgame interview with Karl-Anthony Towns after the Knicks\u2019 rousing 108-106 comeback win over the Rockets<\/a> on Saturday night at the Garden.<\/p>\n

Before Towns scored a team-high 25 points<\/a> in the win, O\u2019Neal, along with Charles Barkley, criticized the Knicks\u2019 big man\u2019s game, calling him out for playing \u201csoft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Karl-AnthonyKarl-Anthony Towns, celebrating after a bucket, scored a team-hight 25 points in the Knicks\u2019 108-106 comeback win over the Rockets on Feb. 21, 2026 at the Garden. Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

To his credit, O\u2019Neal admitted to Towns after the game that he criticized his \u201csoft\u201d play <\/a>because he has often seen him play with force and wants to see him do that on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of the game, I said you were playing soft because I\u2019ve seen you at times when you play great,\u201d O\u2019Neal told Towns on ESPN\u2019s \u201cInside the NBA\u201d postgame show. \u201cAnd what you must understand in New York, you need to be great for you guys to win the championship. It\u2019s high aspirations. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you guys win the championship, of course, they\u2019re gonna talk about [Jalen] Brunson, but it\u2019s you and your play. You have to be dominant. You responded very, very well. You played well, you played in the paint, that\u2019s how you should play. You should always play great. Being from Jersey, good ain\u2019t good enough. You had a great game tonight. I\u2019m proud of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Shaq was looking for agreement from Towns, he was in for a bit of a surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cNah, for sure. But what you said, too, if we win a championship, they can talk about anybody as long as we all get a ring. That\u2019s the most important thing. I don\u2019t care about none of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a team-first response by Towns, but Shaq still wasn\u2019t buying it and came back with a quick retort.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, but you gotta play great. 1-2 punch, and you\u2019re a part of that 1-2 punch,\u201d O\u2019Neal said.<\/p>\n

Towns gave Shaq\u2019s point a quick acknowledgement but doubled down on his point that helping bring the Knicks an NBA title is what it\u2019s all about, not individual accolades.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yeah, but I wanna make sure we all understand that the biggest goal, the main goal here, is to win,\u201d Towns said. \u201cIt don\u2019t matter about who gets the credit or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ShaquilleShaquille O\u2019Neal at this past All-Star Game Weekend. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Neal tripled down on his point, replying: \u201cIt ain\u2019t about that, you gotta play great. Nope, you gotta play great to get the credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Towns, sounding like he was ready to end this part of the interview replied: \u201cI hear you. Legend, I agree with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the interview with Towns was complete, Barkley told Shaq that Towns is a good player and a nice guy, but that it\u2019s not in his mental makeup to have a killer mindset. He also added you can\u2019t force a player to be something he\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Despite the drama, it appears Towns may be starting to turn the corner.<\/p>\n

Towns \u2014 a six-time All-Star \u2014 posted his fourth-straight 20-point game, his longest streak of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not all star players have the same personality. That became abundantly clear during Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s postgame interview with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,2001,563,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,1302,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-617695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charles-barkley","10":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkknicks","17":"tag-shaquille-oneal","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116114209860137679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617695","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=617695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}