Dave Portnoy forced to eat words after declaring Knicks dead in Game 1

After falling behind big to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Tuesday night, everyone thought the New York Knicks were dead, including Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

After a generational seven-game run, the Knicks looked the part of a rusty team that hadn’t played in awhile. That wasn’t totally surprising because New York had a whopping nine-day wait in between games.

The Knicks were behind 22 points with 7:52 left in the fourth quarter, and that led to Portnoy calling it a night prematurely.

“As somebody who won a ton of Eastern Conference Finals I want to tell Knicks fans not to give up. That looked like a rust game to me,” Portnoy stated. “Plus probably over confident after beating a pathetic Sixers team. Long series. Keep your head up. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. You guys aren’t that good but you can still win this thing. Chin up.”

But the Knicks came storming back and began looking like the team that looked unbeatable going into this series. New York put together an 18-1 run and forced overtime.

From there, the dejected Cavs stood no chance and the Knicks promptly put them to bed with a dominant overtime showing.

To his credit, Portnoy didn’t delete his tweet or ignore it. He took his blunder head on.

“Knicks outscored Cavs 44-11 after I tweeted this,” Portnoy said. “Amazing. Imagine betting Cavs +6.5 tonight. Yikes.”

“I’d also like to point that many people would delete the below tweet, but that is not my style. I will own it. Leaders lead. Credit to me for being accountable,” Portnoy added.

Knicks’ generational playoff run

At one point, there were doubts that the New York Knicks would even get out of the first round.

After all, New York didn’t look great over its first three games with the Atlanta Hawks and were down 2-1 in the series.

Since then, the Knicks are 8-0 and easily swept the Philadelphia 76ers in the second round.

In the process, the Knicks have been winning by massive margins and have been playing elite on both sides of the ball.

Is this a sign that the Knicks have turned the corner and are now an elite team? Or is this just a temporary run that will end at the worst time?

We can’t say for sure, but Knicks fans aren’t worried about that right now. All that matters is Game 2 against the Cavs on Thursday night.