The Knicks have struggled at home throughout the playoffs. Who’s to blame?
Is it Tom Thibodeau? The players?
Well, WFAN host Boomer Esiason has chosen his scapegoat for the team’s 3-5 mark and MSG this postseason.
“I think [the Knicks] are sick and tired of all the damn celebrities at home,” Esiason said on the air on Tuesday.
“They’d rather get away from all that.”
Whether it’s the celebrities or just the sheer size and passion of the New York sports market, playing for a Big Apple team has another level of pressure and distraction.
On Monday, former Knick and current Timberwolves star Julius Randle spoke on the noise that comes with playing for the Knicks.
“It ain’t fun. You can’t really focus on the game, you’re focused on everything else other than the game itself,” Randle told Yahoo Sports.
“You’re living and dying with every single shot, every single turnover, every single loss.”
Spike Lee, Suni Lee, Timothee Chalamet, the Kardashians, Ben Stiller — you name them — MSG’s “celebrity row” is always overflowing with huge names.
And when they’re courtside and being consistently shown on game broadcasts and the in-arena Jumbotron, they’re hard to ignore.
The Knicks are in the midst of their best playoff run in quite some time.
This is the team’s first Eastern Conference finals trip since the 1999-2000 season, when the team fell to the Reggie Miller-led Pacers.
However, they have yet to turn MSG into a true home-court advantage this postseason.
In their 4-2 series win against the Pistons, just one of the Knicks’ wins came at home. In the second round against the Celtics, they dropped Game 3 at home after stealing the first two on the road, but won Games 4 and 6 at MSG.
Entering the conference finals with home-court advantage, the Knicks collapsed down the stretch in Game 1 and lost in overtime before dropping another tight one in Game 2.
They then followed that up with a statement road win in Game 3.
The Knicks are 6-1 on the road in these playoffs.
When you pair the celebrities with the championship-hungry New York fan base, perhaps Esiason has a point.
