The New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 at Frost Bank Center, ending a 53-year NBA championship drought — and Stephen A. Smith chose that moment to stop talking about Donald Trump.
Late Saturday night, after the final horn, Smith told OutKick/ Digital: "The Knicks just won the title. I don't give a s--- about politics or anything like that. I could care less. You could ask me tomorrow, you could ask me Tuesday. But right now, the New York Knicks just ended a 53-year drought. I've waited all my life for this moment. And I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that."
The scoreline — 94-90 in Game 5 — closed the series and supplied the undeniable measure of the night. It also turned a running public argument into a secondary detail: Smith, a lifelong fan who said he was "born in the Bronx raised in Hollis, Queens," stressed the win was everything to him, adding, "There's no disrespect to you or anybody else. It's just that that stuff is the furthest thing from my mind. I've been a lifelong New York Knick fan... It's been 53 years. And it's over."
The backstory mattered to the moment. Donald Trump attended Game 3 at Madison Square Garden, a visit Smith had repeatedly criticized; the Knicks lost that game. After Game 3, Trump spoke with reporters before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington, D.C., and the two men traded barbs in public. Smith had said Trump had "no business" showing up in New York City for Game 3 and warned he would blame Trump if the Knicks lost. Trump, in turn, dismissed Smith's prospects outside sports, saying, "I think he’s a nice guy, but you need a certain aptitude to run for president," and, "You need a high IQ. I’m not sure that Stephen has that. I don’t think he does, actually."
That friction — a sports beat turned political — was suspended by the title. Smith's immediate refusal to engage after the clincher left the exchange unresolved: he explicitly invited questions at a later date, saying, "You could ask me tomorrow, you could ask me Tuesday," but made clear the championship, not politics, was front and center.
The timing sharpened the stakes. The Knicks’ crown was their first since 1973, and for fans and for Smith personally the result carried decades of buildup. It also rewrote the frame of the Trump episode: a high-profile presidential appearance that coincided with a Knicks loss became, in the short term, a footnote to a long-awaited title rather than the defining takeaway from the series.
Still, the exchange left an unresolved line of accountability between commentary and politics. Smith had spent several days talking about Trump’s Game 3 attendance in public; Trump had leveled personal critiques aimed at Smith’s aptitude and intelligence. Smith’s decision to decline comment now does not answer whether he will take up the matter again once the confetti is swept away, and whether a resumed back-and-forth would matter beyond the moment.
The single consequential unanswered question is whether Smith will respond to Trump’s taunts about his aptitude and high IQ after the celebration ends — he invited that follow-up, but made clear not tonight. For readers seeking other political headlines in the meantime, Filmogaz has recent coverage touching on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden’s pardon at Joe Biden.
