As one of the most dominant centers on the low block in the history of basketball, Shaquille O’Neal predictably prefers to see other centers around the NBA play in the paint. So when New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns opted to take some questionable three-pointers during Game 3 against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, the always-critical Inside the NBA voice made sure to let him hear about it.
Given the fact that the Knicks came into the game facing a 2-0 series deficit, there is very little margin of error for a Knicks team looking for answers.
Despite this, Towns took a rather ill-advised, 32-foot three-point shot with 17 seconds on the shot clock at the beginning of the second quarter that clanked off the back rim.
This became a topic of conversation for the Inside the NBA crew when the Pacers went into halftime with a 58-45 lead, with O’Neal claiming that he and Towns would be “fighting in the locker room” if he were his teammate and saw him take that kind of shot.
“He’s not playing well,” O’Neal said of Towns. “This shot right here. Look at this…”
“What the hell is this?” added Charles Barkley.
“We’d be fighting in the locker room right now,” added O’Neal. “We’re down 0-2, and we’re taking 35-footers? Take a couple of dribbles. Back the little man down, shoot your jump hook.”
Shaq on Karl-Anthony Towns: “This shot right here, we’d be fighting in the locker room right now. We’re down 0-2 and we’re taking 35-footers?” pic.twitter.com/7HskK4tCmy
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 26, 2025
This is far from the first time O’Neal has had this kind of criticism for Towns, whom he told to “get his big a** in the lane” after a game in the Western Conference Finals last postseason while he was on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Towns is, of course, one of the best three-point shooting big men in the history of the game, which is backed up by his regular-season numbers, shooting 42 percent on three-point attempts on the year. So having Towns shoot threes in general isn’t the bad strategy that O’Neal thinks it is.
But with that being said, shooting threes a foot away from the logo with nearly a full shot clock remaining is objectively a pretty bad shot for anyone not named Steph Curry.