Not all star players have the same personality.
That became abundantly clear during Shaquille O’Neal’s postgame interview with Karl-Anthony Towns after the Knicks’ rousing 108-106 comeback win over the Rockets on Saturday night at the Garden.
Before Towns scored a team-high 25 points in the win, O’Neal, along with Charles Barkley, criticized the Knicks’ big man’s game, calling him out for playing “soft.”
To his credit, O’Neal admitted to Towns after the game that he criticized his “soft” play because he has often seen him play with force and wants to see him do that on a consistent basis.
“At the beginning of the game, I said you were playing soft because I’ve seen you at times when you play great,” O’Neal told Towns on ESPN’s “Inside the NBA” postgame show. “And what you must understand in New York, you need to be great for you guys to win the championship. It’s high aspirations.
“If you guys win the championship, of course, they’re gonna talk about [Jalen] Brunson, but it’s you and your play. You have to be dominant. You responded very, very well. You played well, you played in the paint, that’s how you should play. You should always play great. Being from Jersey, good ain’t good enough. You had a great game tonight. I’m proud of you.”
If Shaq was looking for agreement from Towns, he was in for a bit of a surprise.
“Nah, for sure. But what you said, too, if we win a championship, they can talk about anybody as long as we all get a ring. That’s the most important thing. I don’t care about none of that.”
It was a team-first response by Towns, but Shaq still wasn’t buying it and came back with a quick retort.
“No, but you gotta play great. 1-2 punch, and you’re a part of that 1-2 punch,” O’Neal said.
Towns gave Shaq’s point a quick acknowledgement but doubled down on his point that helping bring the Knicks an NBA title is what it’s all about, not individual accolades.
“Hell yeah, but I wanna make sure we all understand that the biggest goal, the main goal here, is to win,” Towns said. “It don’t matter about who gets the credit or whatever.”
But O’Neal tripled down on his point, replying: “It ain’t about that, you gotta play great. Nope, you gotta play great to get the credit.”
Towns, sounding like he was ready to end this part of the interview replied: “I hear you. Legend, I agree with you.”
After the interview with Towns was complete, Barkley told Shaq that Towns is a good player and a nice guy, but that it’s not in his mental makeup to have a killer mindset. He also added you can’t force a player to be something he’s not.
Despite the drama, it appears Towns may be starting to turn the corner.
Towns — a six-time All-Star — posted his fourth-straight 20-point game, his longest streak of the season.