On Tuesday, the New York Knickerbockers staged a historic comeback to steal Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals from the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Naturally, this led to most of Wednesday’s sports talk shows and podcasts to ask whether Game 1 was more of a win for the Knicks or a collapse for the Cavs … and how this somehow connects back to President Donald Trump?
Ex-ESPN talking head Max Kellerman was the pundit who made this a bizarre political statement on his “Game Over” podcast, according to Fox News.
Kellerman’s Trump dig came as he was denigrating Cavaliers star James Harden.
“Bringing in James Harden to win a championship is like electing Donald Trump to fix your country,” he said.
(For the unaware, Harden — a former league MVP — is one of the most talented players to ever set foot on an NBA court, but has a well-documented history of struggling mightily in the playoffs.)
Unsurprisingly, social media largely took a negative view of Kellerman’s wholly unprovoked shot.
So by that logic the Cavs should win the championship then because Trump is fixing the country. It’s just popular to hate the guy. Following that same old tired script is getting old.
— xKLDRCKx (@xkldrckx) May 20, 2026
While Harden looks washed, let sports be sports w/o all that political BS
Cant enjoy something w/o politics getting involved anymore
— Boo Ghan (@BooGhan) May 20, 2026
Kellerman also appeared to do a disservice to himself by putting much of the focus on his political commentary, rather than any commentary he proffered about the game itself.
And what a game it was.
As mentioned above, it makes it all the odder that Kellerman felt compelled to focus on partisan politics when addressing the game, when the game itself had so much to dissect.
With less than eight minutes left to play, the Cavaliers held a sizable 93-71 lead over the home team Knicks. The crowd had been taken out of the game, the Knicks seemed listless and consigned to giving up the first game of the conference championship, and the Cavs were rolling — until they weren’t.
From that point forward, the Knicks would blitz the Cavs, erasing that 22-point deficit in regulation (largely by picking on Harden defensively), and outscored the Cavs 14-3 in overtime, leading to a harder-than-it-looked 115-104 win for New York.
the Knicks comeback highlights is just James Harden getting burned every single possession it’s honestly incredible 💀💀 pic.twitter.com/OfZDvlyOaI
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) May 20, 2026
And as Yahoo Sports pointed out, this was literally the biggest postseason comeback in Knicks history. It’s also the second-biggest comeback in the NBA playoffs over the last 30 years.
So there was clearly a lot to talk about without invoking the president’s name. But perhaps that wasn’t so clear for Mr. Kellerman.
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