Ben Stiller addresses Pat McAfee Photo credit: SNY

Ben Stiller may not have known much about Pat McAfee before Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but he knows a little more about him now.

Tasked with firing up the home crowd Tuesday night, McAfee was handed a live microphone during Game 4 between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers. And McAfee did so by taking aim at the Knicks’ celebrity fans who traveled to Indiana for the game, calling out Spike Lee, Ben Stiller, and Timothée Chalamet before urging the Indiana fans to send them home with their ears bleeding.

It was a very WWE-esque performance by McAfee, who successfully fired up the crowd. Wednesday morning, Stiller joined SNY’s The Putback with Ian Begley, where he was asked about the moment with McAfee.


“I have to say, I was not familiar with his game. I did not know that was coming. I’m a casual football fan. I know he was like a field goal kicker? Placekicker?” Stiller asked before being reminded that McAfee was a punter for the Indianapolis Colts. “Punter, he was a punter. And then he got really popular on his show. Was he also a wrestler? Does he also wrestle?”

Begley then told Stiller that McAfee is not a professional wrestler, but he is part of the WWE family as a color commentator for Raw. And that pro wrestling affiliation was definitely evident as McAfee called out the celebrity Knicks fans in Indiana.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Stiller admitted. “I did know that Timothée had been on his show. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s your boy. That’s your guy.’ So when that happened, I was a little bit like, ‘Whoa.’ But the WWE aspect of it, I get it. It’s just not the way it happens in New York. He should come to the Garden for Game 5.”

If you’re not familiar with the Garden’s game, you might be assuming Stiller was inviting McAfee to New York to get booed by the Knicks fans. But that’s not how MSG operates.

“They’ll put him up on the screen and they’ll show him punting the ball and everybody will give him a nice cheer,” Stiller said. “That’s how we do it in New York. But I get it, it was fun. He was just trying to get the crowd riled up. It was a little bit out of the blue. It’s also like, are we really doing the narrative of Hicks versus Knicks? Like the bigwigs from New York? It just seems a little cartoonish. But then again, it goes with the WWE.”

Reggie Miller will get booed when the Garden puts him on the Jumbotron. But Stiller is right, McAfee would probably be cheered. McAfee may have gone after Stiller, Chalamet, and Spike Lee, but Knicks fans do not feel attacked because the celebrities who sit courtside don’t represent the fan base. And right now, Knicks fans are much more concerned about being down 3-1 in the series than they are about how New York celebrities were treated in Indiana.

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com