Make a basket, get a letter and use it to beat your opponent in one of the first games we all learn as children.<\/p>\n
One of them, however, forgot to defend, eschewing a block between a pair of Xs to drop an O in an opposite corner, paving the way for a disastrous loss.<\/p>\n
The blunder was costly enough \u2014 the fan didn\u2019t win the $1,000 prize \u2014 and doing so in front of 19,812 fans at the World\u2019s Most Famous Arena, a set that included a stacked celebrity row<\/a> of Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Kylie Jenner, Ben Stiller, Mariska Hargitay and more.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s hope the fan didn\u2019t try to ease their loss by watching \u201cSportsCenter\u201d when they got home, either, as host Scott Van Pelt nearly lost his mind<\/a> trying to figure out what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are we doing? This\u2026 This\u2026 Have you ever played the game?\u201d he decried during the midnight showing on ESPN.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an X here and an X here \u2026 the O has to go here. It isn\u2019t complicated. It\u2019s a simple game. We play it as children.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow The Post\u2019s coverage of the Knicks in the 2025 NBA Playoffs<\/p>\n Sports+ subscribers: Sign up for Inside the Knicks<\/a> to get daily newsletter coverage and join Expert Take<\/a> for insider texts about the series.<\/p>\n Van Pelt didn\u2019t stop there, as the breakdown continued.<\/p>\n \u201cI get it: you\u2019re running, there\u2019s a lot of people watching,\u201d he said. \u201cReally, the second O is a catastrophe. How the hell do you put it there when the X is here? Now you understand, I\u2019ve got to block the two Xs. \u2026 What are we doing? I understand. Timothee Chalamet, he\u2019s in the front row<\/a> \u2026 you\u2019re nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n The Knicks \u2014 unlike this fan \u2014 get another crack at their foe in Saturday\u2019s Game 6, thanks to the 111-94 win Thursday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks had their X\u2019s and O\u2019s in order Thursday night. The same can\u2019t exactly be said of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806,8144,66,2086,6839,3647,15922],"class_list":{"0":"post-66249","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-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks","15":"tag-scott-van-pelt","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-entertainment","18":"tag-sports-fans","19":"tag-sports-media","20":"tag-sportscenter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114597511027207526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66249","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=66249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Screenshot-2025-05-30-at-10.06.48-AM.png\")
In a game of tic-tac-toe at the Garden, one fan opted not to play defense and handed victory to his opponent. SportsCenter\/ESPN<\/p>\n![\"SportsCenter](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Screenshot-2025-05-30-at-10.05.39-AM.png\")
SportsCenter host Scott Van Pelt was unsparing in his breakdown of the disastrous game. SportsCenter\/ESPN<\/p>\n