Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James and New York Knicks center Enes Kanter continued their verbal sparring one day after their face-to-face encounter at Madison Square Garden. Virtually declaring himself “King of New York,” James posted on his Instagram account a photo of him standing over the Knicks logo with the caption “You’re welcome..(crown emoji) of NY #myfavoriteplayground #striveforgreatness.”
As expected, Kanter has an opinion on James’ latest Instagram post, saying “We already have a king. It’s Kristaps Porzingis,” per Ian Begley of ESPN.
The beef between James and Kanter started when the Cavaliers superstar said that the Knicks should have taken Dennis Smith Jr. with the No. 8 pick and not Frank Ntilikina. Smith was taken by the Dallas Mavericks at No. 9.
Kanter came to rookie’s defense
After that, Kanter came to Ntilikina’s defense, saying the Knicks like what they have. Kanter added that James’ statement was disrespectful to Ntilikina, whom he said is doing an unbelievable job and working really hard. Before their Monday’s game, James clarified that his statement was meant to criticize former Knicks president Phil Jackson and not to throw shade at Ntilikina. James has a bad blood with Jackson, who earlier called the Cavaliers superstar’s friends and advisors as “posse.” The word war between James and Kanter almost turned physical in the first quarter.
After a dunk by James, he stood over Ntilikina, who was trying to get the ball for an inbounds play. Ntilikina pushed James several times in the chest before Kanter confronted James. The confrontation did not turn physical as cooler heads intervened while James and Kanter were issued technical fouls. After the game, Kanter explained his move in a post-game interview, saying “What do you call yourself?
King, Queen, Princess. Whatever you are. We're going to fight. Nobody out there is going to punk us.” James replied to Kanter’s jab, saying “I’m the king, my wife is the queen and my daughter is the princess so we got all three covered.”
Cavs erased 23-point deficit
Kanter had a reason to be disappointed as the Knicks squandered a 23-point lead in their 104-101 loss to the Cavaliers.
Kyle Korver scored 19 of his 21 points in the fourth quarterback to spark the Cavaliers’ comeback en route to the victory that improved their record to 7-7. James was a rebound short of a triple-double, finishing with 23 points, nine boards, and 12 assists, Dwyane Wade added 15 off the bench and Jae Crowder had 13 for the Cavaliers. Tim Hardaway Jr. led the Knicks with 28 points on top of 10 boards, Porzingis had 20 points and seven rebounds while Kanter submitted a double-double with 20 points and 16 rebounds.
