One of the 3,542,976 reasons the NBA is The Best is the relative freedom players have to truly express themselves on and off the court. The league gives players a lot of leeway to talk, Tweet and fave Instagrams — and, you know, shoot, dunk and foul — as a way of communicating their feelings, especially when those feelings are petty. Which is to say, Adam Silver doesn’t care about LeBron’s Halloween party decorations.
The playoffs in particular lend themselves to exceptional displays of disrespect and pettiness, which should be celebrated. Golden State and Cleveland have a semi-lock on disrespectful play, but the whole league really leans into the petty. And while this is a place to celebrate all such occasions, it is also one to clearly identify them.
Disrespect, generally, involves a performative statement or a statement performance. The former might be Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook laughing at Steph Curry’s defense in the 2016 Western Conference Finals and the latter might be Playoff LeBron always.
Pettiness requires honing in on one very small thing, usually a perceived slight that most people don’t notice or remember and saying or doing something delightfully extreme or incredible in response. Draymond Green tweeting “Man 3-1 sucks” when the Cleveland Indians lost the World Series was petty, so is Russ’ behavior, always.
Some other examples:
- The Cavaliers throttling the life out of the Celtics in Game 2 was disrespectful.
- LeBron putting up 30 points, 7 assists, 4 steals and 3 blocks in that same Game 2, specifically after being snubbed as an MVP finalist, is petty.
- LeBron pretending to drink a beer courtside during Game 1 against the Raptors was disrespectful.
- (LeBron is All-NBA petty and disrespectful.)
Feel comfortable with the terms? Great. Now let’s look back on a few playoff events so far and evaluate: disrespectful or petty?
Steph Curry hits an exact mirror-image shot of Damian Lillard’s miss in Game 2 of Warriors-Trail Blazers
There was not a lot of suspense in the Warriors’ sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, but that just means you had to find fun where you could — like an otherwise unremarkable Curry 3-pointer.
It was the third quarter of Game 2 and the Blazers were down by 16. Dame fired up a particularly deep 3, which was not the best shot for him but it was also not the worst. It missed and Curry got the rebound. Steph brought the ball up and promptly shot and made…almost the same 3.
byDeep 3s are usually disrespectful shots. Logo shots are always disrespectful shots. Out past 30 feet gets slightly less disrespectful coming from Curry, because those are normal shots for him — but the fact you must treat those as normal shots for him is, itself, disrespectful. A deep 3 from Curry is a Russian nesting doll of disrespect.
This shot, however, had the added detail of being as close to Dame’s exact shot as Curry could take without scoring on himself. Attention to detail that nearly no one else notices is a hallmark of pettiness.
Verdict: Petty.
John Wall mocks Boston’s attempted pettiness in Game 6 of Wizards-Celtics
The Wizards and the Celtics are, according to folks at SB Nation, the pettiest rivalry in the NBA. It began with a boop and grows stronger any time a player on either team wears black. Of course, when teams are petty in March, you can bet they’re going to be petty in May.
The Celtics wore black to Game 6 in D.C., a call-back to when the Wizards wore black during the regular season, to indicate they would “bury” Washington in what would be an elimination game. (Black means they’re dressed like they’re going to a funeral, you see.) Then the Celtics lost the game.
John Wall, a recognized league-leader in pettiness, had this to add to the conversation: “Don’t come to my city, wearing all black, talking about ‘it’s a funeral.'”
Most importantly though, it was Wall who hit the game-winner with five seconds left. Whether intentionally petty or not, whose to say. Wall did not show up as hoped for in Game 7, but he certainly hit Boston when it counted.
Verdict: Petty.
The Cavaliers come out to Monstars music in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals
After being soundly beaten at home Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Isaiah Thomas made what you would think be an innocuous comment about of the Cavaliers: “They’re not the Monstars.”
Four days later, when the two teams met in Cleveland, the Cavaliers elected to enter QuickenLoans Arena to none other than the Monstars’ theme. It was delightful. But was it petty? Was it disrespectful?
This is a tricky one, because in theory, it should be a no-brainer for the petty team. The Cavs latched onto one small comment and made a whole Thing out of it. However, it’s also a massive self-own. As we all know, MJ and the Tune Squad won the game — Monstars presumably was meant to somehow designate super human villainy but by also losing the game, the Cavs did not reclaim the dig, as it were. The whole metaphor was muddled from the start.
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But, dabble, if you will, in another beloved NBA tradition: conspiracy theories. Imagine the Cavs threw Game 3 in order to fully commit to the Monstars bit, so confident were they that they would secure Game 4 and subsequently Game 5.
Verdict: That, friends, is both petty and disrespectful.