Fight night in the NBA

A weekend of anger strikes the league. Everyone's on edge, OK?

Good morning.

Bullfight; Francisco Goya; 1824

Let’s basketball.

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Round 1: Gobert vs. Braun

We had a much anticipated rematch between the Timberwolves and Nuggets scheduled for Friday night on national TV. The game lived up to the hype. And speaking of hype, Christian Braun was hyped all night long. He dunked on Naz Reid early in the game and was hollerin’. Christian Braun is generally hollerin’ after every dunk.

And then he dunked on Rudy Gobert hard and got to hollerin’, and Gobert wasn’t a fan of that activity, and this happened.

They ended up with double technicals. Gobert ends up in a usual place: the target of jokes. I mean, it’s understood. That was a mean dunk.

More importantly, the Timberwolves ended up taking over from this point on, finishing on a 17-6 run to come back and beat Denver again.

Who was there for all of that?

Gobert made Braun miss a floater with the Wolves up one with 13 seconds left. Gobert got the rebound. Gobert got fouled by Braun. Gobert hit both free throws to put the Wolves up three. And Gobert iced the game defending Nikola Jokic on the would-be tying three.

This is a perfect encapsulation of Rudy Gobert in the NBA: damn impactful, winning play but always on the business end of derision. I don’t think he likes the bargain, but if he ever gets a championship or a Hall of Fame plaque maybe he will consider it worth it.

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Round 2: Grant Williams vs. The Celtics

And here I thought Grant Williams was still friends with his old teammates in Boston. I smell some bad blood.

Williams claimed he is still close friends with Tatum and it was just a hard foul. I don’t know, man. Did Tatum do Williams dirty in their last game of Uno or something? Drawing a Flagrant-2 in the fourth quarter of a competitive game by taking out your friend is weird.

Tatum didn’t talk about. Jaylen Brown, who does not seem to care much for Williams, did talk about it, and seemed to be mad enough on Tatum’s behalf.

The teams met again Saturday and there were no further incidents. Williams needs to pick up the tab for the next few dinners.

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Round 3: Drake vs. DeRozan

Do I need to catch any of you up on why Drake and DeMar DeRozan have beef? Let’s see how economically I can explain this.