If the New York Knicks are going to upset the Boston Celtics, Marcus Spears knows even the unusual suspects will have to contribute.
The Knicks and Celtics tip off their Eastern Conference semifinal series Monday night in Boston. After going 0-4 against the Celtics during the regular season, not many believe the Knicks can win the playoff series. Monday morning on First Take, however, NFL analyst Marcus Spears painted a path to victory, believing Katt Williams will have to step up.
“This is a superstar series,” Spears said while sharing the screen with Stephen A. Smith, Brian Windhorst and Kendrick Perkins. “This is the $200-300 million guy series if you’re the New York Knicks. And they have to show up each and every quarter and every minute of this game. And when they’re off, obviously the bench has to come up.
“But this is a Brunson, a Katt Williams game and they’re going to have to find something from either OG or get somebody else going on this team to make up for something that may lack.”
We assume Spears is referring to OG Anunoby, but after he name-dropped Katt Williams as one of his keys to the Knicks winning, who can tell?
Obviously, Spears meant Knicks’ center Karl-Anthony Towns, not Katt Williams when talking about the need for stars to step up in this series. But the Knicks should take all the help they can get. If the comedian can have the same impact on the Knicks as he did on Shannon Sharpe’s career (pre-legal trouble), they just might have a chance of upsetting the top-seeded Celtics.
And if Spears meant Karl-Anthony Towns, he’s right, the Knicks will need their All-Star center to step up in this series. Despite big performances in Games 3 and 4 of the first round, Towns was invisible at times against the Detroit Pistons.
Even in the Knicks’ Game 6 win to clinch the series, Towns scored just 10 points before fouling out. If that’s all KAT is going to do against the Celtics, then maybe the Knicks should just take Spears’ unorthodox suggestion and see what Katt Williams has to offer.