Kendrick Perkins wants Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley to do their jobs and watch the Knicks.
A lack of familiarity, Perkins surmises, is the only reason the TNT analysts could not be high on this year’s Knicks team, which clinched the East’s No. 2 seed in the 2024 NBA playoffs on Sunday.
“It’s obviously (that) they don’t watch basketball,” Perkins said Monday on the “Michael Kay Show.” “I’m serious, they can’t watch basketball on a consistent basis. The only time they actually probably watch the Knicks is when they’re covering the Knicks on their game nights.”
While Perkins, a former NBA center-turned-ESPN personality, seemingly is the biggest Knicks cheerleader in the media, O’Neal and Barkley are more critical.
O’Neal has particularly downplayed the Knicks as title contenders.
He first said on April 2 that the Magic would down the Knicks in a potential first-round matchup.
“Orlando is going to sweep them,” said O’Neal, whose jersey was retired by the Magic earlier this year. “Orlando wins that series. Forget the sweep. We gonna win that series.”
Last week, both analysts said they would predict the Pacers to beat the Knicks.
“I think the Pacers beat the Knicks,” Barkley said, to which O’Neal replied, “I agree with you on that, Chuck.”
Perkins is much more bullish on the Knicks — to the point that you wonder if he played for the team — and said his media counterparts wouldn’t dismiss the Knicks if they routinely watched them.
The Knicks have the chance to validate Perkins’ belief and prove O’Neal and Barkley wrong when they face the winner of Wednesday’s play-in tournament game between the 76ers and Heat in the first round of the postseason.
“If you’re watching the Knicks, there’s no way in hell you can downplay the way they’ve been playing the game of basketball,” Perkins said. “You’re watching the New York Knicks, there’s no way in hell you can downplay that Jalen Brunson has been the best player in the Eastern Conference. If you’re watching the Knicks, there’s no way you can downplay that Josh Hart has been one of the best rebounding guards in the league outside of Luka Doncic. If you don’t watch the Knicks on a consistent basis then you don’t know.
“Then you get a signature win against the Celtics and it’s like, ‘Oh, well, the Celtics, they were just teeing up and they are getting ready for the postseason.’ No, they actually played everybody and the New York Knicks made them tap out. It’s a difference. Guys that are downplaying with this Knicks coaching and Tom Thibodeau, they haven’t been watching them.”
