Shaquille O’Neal has never been afraid to be blunt in his analysis of individual player performances, especially when it comes to how fellow centers are impacting the game. But O’Neal had a pretty misguided reaction to Karl-Anthony Towns’ performance in Tuesday’s Knicks-Pistons Game 2 matchup, which Ernie Johnson quickly corrected him about.
During the postgame analysis of Game 2 on TNT from the Inside the NBA crew, a highlight package showcased some of the game’s biggest highlights in chronological order.
After seeing a dunk from Towns in the first quarter of the game, O’Neal expressed his excitement for how Towns played throughout the entire game.
“He played like a real big man tonight. I’m happy for KAT,” said O’Neal.
This prompted Ernie Johnson to immediately push back, citing how Towns failed to score a single point in the second half.
“Well, he did in the first half,” replied Johnson. He didn’t score in the second half.”
“Oh, wow,” replied O’Neal, who didn’t appear to know that this was the case.
As you may expect, the vast majority of media members saw Towns’ performance far differently than O’Neal, ripping him for his lack of aggression down the stretch.
O’Neal received a fair amount of criticism in March when he admitted that he “doesn’t watch the Pistons” after having trashed them on his podcast, despite actually having a solid season. He would later mistake Chauncey Billups as the head coach of the Pistons (he’s not), has been caught being unaware when certain players aren’t playing, and recently seemed unaware of Nikola Jokić’s country of origin.
Then again, he does know how to make good TV by needing to use bathroom during a live broadcast, so Shaq’s services as an NBA “analyst” are a bit of a trade-off.