Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy is well known to be bold when it comes to his sports takes. Unfortunately for Portnoy, his lack of a filter ultimately led to an unceremonious feature on the popular social media account “Freezing Cold Takes” on Monday night.
Portnoy, who was born and raised in the Boston area, has a well-documented allegiance to all things Boston sports. So it was pretty easy to assume that heading into the Boston Celtics’ Game 1 matchup with the New York Knicks on Monday night, Portnoy expected his Celtics to take care of business easily on their home court.
For much of the game, it looked like Portnoy was entirely correct, going into the second half with a 61-45 lead. This gave Portnoy even more confidence, and he took to social media to detail that his original prediction for the series was a 4-1 gentleman’s sweep for the Celtics. But after watching the first half, Portnoy thought it was clear that the Knicks “don’t belong in the same gym” as the Celtics.
“I said it would be a gentleman’s sweep,” wrote Portnoy. “I was wrong. The Knicks don’t belong in the same gym with us. #celticsin3.”
Portnoy’s declaration looked even better through the first half of the third quarter as the Celtics extended their lead to as high as 20 points.
Unfortunately for Portnoy, the Knicks then proceeded to slowly cut into the lead, going on a 31-11 run that extended into the fourth quarter to tie the game. Portnoy documented his reaction to the Celtics blowing their huge lead on his social media page the whole time.
Ultimately, the game went into overtime, and the Knicks used their late-game momentum to come away with a 108-105 victory after Mikal Bridges stole the Celtics’ final offensive possession.
To be fair to Portnoy, he was far from the only sports media personality who publicly declared that the Celtics had the game well in hand. At the time, it did seem like the Knicks didn’t have much to offer the Celtics on the court.
But even knowing how the game ultimately went, it was obviously a bit too bold of Portnoy to declare the entire series over because of what happened in the first half of the first game.
As a result, Portnoy’s post ended up on the infamous X account “Freezing Cold Takes”, which has singled out countless sports media personalities for their inaccurate takes over the years.
In a follow-up post after the game, Portnoy reiterated his prediction that the Celtics would win the series 4-1.
“Gentleman’s sweep,” wrote Portnoy on X. “#Celticsin5.”
Considering the Celtics came into the series with a 4-0 record against the Knicks in the regular season with an average scoring differential of 16 points, Portnoy may very well end up being right in his newest prediction. But at least for one night, Portnoy spoke too soon.