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The New York Knicks blew out the Golden State Warriors on December 20 and saw their win streak climb to eight, the longest in the league.
Despite the dominant stretch, not everybody is a believer, and former NBA player turned analyst Shaquille O’Neal doesn’t think the Knicks will even make it out of the first round.
Speaking before the Knicks took on the Warriors, both O’Neal and fellow analyst Charles Barkley agreed it’s far too early for New York to hang up any banners despite how things are going for them.
O’Neal and Barkley Are Doubters
As of December 21, the Knicks are sitting at 18-13, putting them at the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference, which would mean they get to avoid the play-in tournament.
However, there’s still a lot of season left to go and the team will have to lose eventually, so this might not stand as the year goes on. O’Neal and Barkley are banking on that fact.
“I’m happy for them, I’m not gonna get too happy,” O’Neal said. “They won seven games, they’re in the 6th seed. Whoopty freakin’ do.”
Of course, this came before the dismantling of the Warriors during the NBA on TNT preshow, but O’Neal’s thoughts are clear.
“I don’t think they can get out of one round,” he concluded.
Barkley then chimed in with the same sentiment.
“I’m with you Shaq, whoopty do,” he said. “They’re not even the best team in the same state. I gave love to them, they’re playing great. But they’re not even the best team in their city.”
The other team they are referring to is the Brooklyn Nets, and after getting off to a rough start and suspending Kyrie Irving, the team is now rolling and finds themselves at 19-12 just above the Knicks in the standings.
Of course, that’s a team being led by Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons and Irving, so they do seem like a squad that could go further in the playoffs, but nobody is playing better basketball in the NBA than the Knicks are at this very moment.
The Wins Have Been Huge
Over the course of this win streak, the Knicks haven’t just been beating teams, but they’ve been beating them soundly.
The 38 point win over the Warriors on Tuesday night wasn’t an outlier, but it was more of the norm over the eight games. Per The Athletic’s Fred Katz, the average margin of victory for the Knicks has been 17.4 over this stretch.
It all got started with a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that came and snatched Donovan Mitchell out from under them. While there was a lot of remorse about not landing the star guard in the offseason, a lot of that has been wiped away since the win streak.
The games seem to get a bit harder in the coming days as they match up against the Raptors, Bulls, Sixers and Mavericks over the next four games. The Sixers game comes on Christmas day, and while that was slammed by fans when it was first announced, it’s looking like that’s going to end up being a good game.
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