Look, if you were hoping for a quiet night on ESPN, you picked the wrong week. Stephen A. Smith and WWE’s Danhausen sat down on The Stephen A. Smith Show to talk about the New York Knicks’ NBA Finals run, and things took a turn. Specifically, a turn toward the White House.
The Knicks dropped Game 3 of the Finals to the San Antonio Spurs, snapping a 13-game winning streak that had fans in Manhattan feeling something like invincibility. That streak started after the Knicks fell behind 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round — which, according to Danhausen, was when the whole curse business got involved.
Danhausen, who works a gimmick built around being a mystical curse-haver and curse-lifter, explained that the Knicks got the bad end of his powers early in the playoffs, then got the good end after he reversed course. They won 13 straight. Then came Game 3 against San Antonio, and someone had to answer for it.
“We ‘cursed,’ they lost two games; we ‘uncursed,’ 13-0. [Then] they lost one, we won’t talk about that. That wasn’t my fault, that wasn’t your fault,” Danhausen said.
Stephen A. wasn’t having it. He cut in with his own theory. “That was Trump, that wasn’t me,” he said. Danhausen threw his hands up immediately: “I didn’t say it!”
Smith pushed back on why a WWE character would be scared of Donald Trump — who was sitting courtside at Madison Square Garden for Game 3. Danhausen insisted he wasn’t scared. Just realistic about limitations.
“Danhausen’s not afraid, but I’m just saying, sometimes those powers get blocked,” the wrestler said. “Every once in a while, one will come across and block it. That night it got blocked. But after that though, we’ll ignore that one, we’ll go past because they won.”
For those keeping score at home, the Knicks did bounce back after Game 3 and went on to win the series. So Danhausen’s post-curse track record remains mostly unblemished, if you’re the kind of person who tracks these things alongside plus-minus stats. The whole exchange was vintage Stephen A. — high volume, minimal backing off — and it played perfectly against Danhausen’s deadpan, unbothered delivery.
Danhausen also took a subtle shot at Kenny Atkinson, who had suggested the Knicks’ winning streak was partly a product of analytics and luck. “I don’t think they accidentally won 13 games in a row,” the wrestler said. “I don’t think they accidentally won a championship.”
So where does that leave the Trump theory? Nowhere definitive, which is probably for the best. Danhausen’s powers are mysterious. Stephen A.’s opinions are loud. And the president was in the building. Whatever happened in Game 3, the Knicks still have the trophy and the last laugh.
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