The Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers 137-98 in Game 1, and fans poured out of Madison Square Garden in New York City to celebrate. Draymond Green, speaking on a recent episode of The Draymond Green show, said the scene had gone too far and singled out J.R. Smith being surrounded outside the arena.
Green told Knicks fans they cannot celebrate “these things like this,” arguing that a parade belongs after a second-round series, not after one win. He said, “How you going to win the Conference Finals we had the parade already?” and added that current players do not care about what older fans went through before this roster.
The outburst landed because the Knicks’ victory was impressive but still only the opening game of a series in which they need three more wins to advance. New York was in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, which makes the reaction around Game 1 easier to understand and harder to defend at the same time: the franchise has made progress, but it has not finished the job.
That is the friction in Green’s remarks. He was not just mocking the celebration; he was telling fans that the players on the floor are not carrying the weight of the crowd’s history, no matter how long that wait has been. His message was blunt: stop celebrating, go to a bar, go home, go drink, and move on until the series is actually won.
The Knicks were scheduled to play Game 2 on Wednesday, which means the celebration outside The Garden was immediately followed by the next test. The result in Game 1 gave fans a reason to dream, but Green’s warning was the sharper reminder that in the postseason, one loud night can still mean very little.