If Joel Embiid had tried to chop down the oak tree, it wouldn’t have ended well.
That’s what the man himself, New York Knicks legend Charles Oakley, says after watching his successors play in the NBA playoffs on Thursday night. The Knicks’ Eastern Conference quarterfinal showdown against the Philadelphia 76ers was defined by controversy and the heroics of Embiid, who scored 50 points in the 125-114 victory but was at the center of a controversial takedown by Mitchell Robinson, who left the match fully fit. -up of an injured ankle after the fight.
While the back-and-forth between the Knicks and Sixers was mostly limited to verbal jabs, Oakley admitted he wouldn’t be as eloquent.
“I probably would have slapped (Embiid),” Oakley said in an interview with Newsday’s Barbara Barker. “You can’t let him send that kind of message. If he had done something like that (when I played), he wouldn’t have gotten away with it. David Robinson, when he played, knew what he could get away with. They (the bullies) fight and they think they will win.”