{"id":713726,"date":"2026-06-04T01:21:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/713726\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T01:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T01:21:15","slug":"stephen-a-smith-takes-credit-for-knicks-getting-to-the-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/713726\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith takes credit for Knicks getting to the NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You probably think it\u2019s Jalen Brunson, Leon Rose or Mike Brown who deserves credit for getting the New York Knicks back to the NBA Finals. Well, you would be wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen A. Smith is here to tell you, he\u2019s the one who deserves credit for pushing the Knicks to where they are right now. That\u2019s right, Smith believes his subtle motivational tactics from afar on First Take are at least part of the reason the Knicks are playing in their first NBA Finals in over a quarter-century. And he wants everyone to know it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI deserve some credit, so I\u2019m gonna take it.\u201d Smith boldly stated Wednesday morning on First Take from San Antonio. \u201cWhen I called the Knicks out, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3ovWDwVFb7E\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">I almost had a stroke on national television<\/a>, they didn\u2019t lose since. They\u2019ve been 11-0. So I\u2019m looking at the New York Knicks and I\u2019m saying, \u2018Yo, there\u2019s a level of urgency.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Stephen A. Smith believes Mike Brown will be fired if the Knicks lose in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMike Brown will be scapegoated\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/etG5T5dqQs\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/etG5T5dqQs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/awfulannouncing\/status\/2044061839546368016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">April 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a level of urgency, and who better to inform the Knicks about that level of urgency than Stephen A. Smith.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just because it\u2019s the NBA Finals,\u201d Smith continued to preach. \u201cThe Spurs can kick your ass! You gotta show up. You gotta show up! You got people out there talking about the Knicks might win in five. The Spurs might win in five!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith has had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Knicks. <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nba\/josh-hart-stephen-a-smith-shut-up-first-take-knicks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Josh Hart went at him earlier in the season<\/a> after Smith went off on Mikal Bridges, who was having a pedestrian regular season. And more than just Bridges, Smith ripped the Knicks and even Jalen Brunson for dealing five first-round draft picks to acquire Bridges in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Smith put the Knicks on blast again during the playoffs, claiming they were on the verge of needing to fire head coach Mike Brown and make drastic changes while trailing the Atlanta Hawks 2-1 in their first round series. To the Knicks credit, and their credit only, they turned it around and haven\u2019t lost a game since April 23, Game 3 of the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Knicks fans often hesitate to claim Stephen A. Smith as one of them, choosing to question his fandom rather than embrace it. And rightfully so, there is certainly a performative aspect to Smith\u2019s Knicks fandom. But Smith has sounded like every other irrational Knicks fan in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>Fans are not supposed to be objective. In February, fans were wishing the Knicks never traded for Mikal Bridges so they could use those five first-round draft picks to land Giannis Antetokounmpo. Fans were similarly crushing the team when they were trailing the Hawks in the first round of the playoffs, rushing to criticize the Knicks for firing Tom Thibodeau last season. And now that they\u2019re in the Finals, surely there are Knicks fans crediting their own superstitions for sparking this historic playoff run.<\/p>\n<p>But if Smith really wants to take credit for getting the Knicks to the Finals, he should show up to the parade and give the team his ring size if they win a championship, and let\u2019s see what type of reaction he gets.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You probably think it\u2019s Jalen Brunson, Leon Rose or Mike Brown who deserves credit for getting the New&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[346648,64,63,726,170361,1666,85,41711],"class_list":["post-713726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-2026-nba-finals","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-first-take","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports","tag-stephen-a-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}