ESPN host Stephen A. Smith received a frosty welcome from New York Knicks fans Friday night as he joined star players Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart for a live taping of their Roomates Show podcast at Madison Square Garden.
Introduced as a surprise guest, the 58-year-old sports pundit was met with a chorus of boos from the crowd, likely because of previous comments he made about the championship-winning players.
Smith criticized Villanova’s 2016 NCAA championship-winning team, saying, “Villanova doesn’t have a real NBA prospect on the squad.” At the time, the roster featured future NBA players Brunson, Hart and Mikal Bridges — all of whom were on the Knicks’ winning squad this season.
Then in 2022, when the Knicks signed Brunson, now 29, the commentator slammed the move. “I’m tired y’all… JALEN BRUNSON ISN’T THE ANSWER,” he argued. “You creating this cap space to get Jalen Brunson? Is he KD? Is he Kawhi Leonard?… You’re selling New York on Jalen Brunson?”
Trying to diffuse the rowdy MSG audience, Smith quipped: “They don’t know that boos are cheers.”
Once the room had settled, Hart confronted Smith over his resurfaced remarks. “We are now sitting here with this golden trophy there to your right,” the shooting guard, 31, said of the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. “Can you sit here and admit you were wrong?”
“I’m a grown-ass man. I was beyond wrong,” the ESPN host admitted. “I’m apologizing to this brother on national television; I’m apologizing to you; I’m apologizing to the entire Knicks organization. Let me be very, very clear: I have never been more happy to be wrong in my life.”
The Bronx native later claimed that he “came out of the womb a Knicks fan,” which was met with more disapproval from the crowd.
“So, I apologize for being wrong,” Smith continued. “But let me be very clear: if it means another championship, I would do it again.”
Last Saturday, the Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in the fifth game of the 2026 NBA Finals, bringing an end to a 53-year championship drought.
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Brunson, who set a finals record with 45 points in the win, was crowned the 2026 Finals MVP.
“I have no words,” an emotional Brunson told ESPN during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
He said of his team: “I’m in awe. I don’t know. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”
The Knicks returned home to massive city-wide celebrations, which culminated in a ticker tape parade Thursday. The event drew an estimated 2 million people, who lined the streets as the team traveled aboard a float from Battery Park to City Hall, where they were awarded the keys to the city.