Poor Yi. I didn’t see today’s game against the Nets (it wasn’t on the TeeVee here in NYC as far as I could tell), so until a YouTube clip appears, I must rely on Chris Sheridan’s florid prose to tell me about KG’s bullying of Yi Jianlian today:
After toying with the Chinese 7-footer in the first quarter both inside and outside, Garnett demonstrably shoved Yi’s arms aside and began bodying him up during a dead ball. The replacement refs quickly separated them, but as soon as they cleared away, Garnett immediately went back at Yi and bodied him up some more, raising his hands high in the air while pushing him from behind with his body — the sort of flashpoint moment that would have earned Garnett a technical foul from a more seasoned official.
“I don’t know him, he don’t know me. It wasn’t nothing personal,” Garnett explained, comparing the incident to an episode he had with Luis Scola of Houston in Boston’s first preseason game last Wednesday.
There are those that have argued KG’s Celtic-era bullying is a sign of insecurity. (Not surprisingly, “those” = Lakers fans). Here’s an excerpt from a post written during the middle of last season on the TrueHoop Lakers blog, Forum Blue and Gold:
For such a successful team, whence this strange insecurity? I believe it springs from the players’ and team’s roots with failure. First Garnett, the spiritual leader of the team and the prototype for insecure athletes. From off the court beginnings to his decade of failed championship questing in Minnesota, KG lived in the shadow of failure for a long time – always labeled as that star who couldn’t get out of the first round, and always afraid of the big shot. We all know people like him – the alpha male who has to be in charge, picks on the little guy, works like a demon, seems haunted by lingering self doubt, and is wildly successful.
KG’s bullying of a vastly inferior player today will only inspire more such talk. But this could be just a case of an elite player trying to rediscover the intensity with which he played before suffering the most serious injury of his career. KG won’t feel comfortable until he tests his body. One way of testing your body is to gear your mind up to peak intensity and just see what the hell happens. In that sense, the faux-intensity is a positive sign. KG is re-training his mind to he can re-train his body, too.
Speaking of KG’s knee, today seems like it was the biggest step in the right direction yet, according to Sheridan’s piece.
KG: “I thought today I got up and down, I tried to put the pressure on their defense. Aggressive, as far as being aggressive, this is probably the most aggressive I’ve been since I’ve come back and played. My reaction time was a lot better, a lot faster.”
And: “Afternoon games are not my forte, but for the most part, yeah, sprinting, my gait is getting better and better, I’m getting stronger, I can see it, feel it,” Garnett said. “My confidence is growing every time I step on the floor, and that includes practice.”
Question: Has the word “gait” ever been used more often to describe a non-equine athlete as it has been used in relation to KG?
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Yi did score 20 and grab 8 boards today, so it wasn’t like it was a totally one-sided affair. Just saying…
Seems like a lot of hype.
If a supposed slug like Yi can recover from this supposed bullying by KG and score 20 points, including some in key stretches, then it would suggest KG is not the KG of old, rather just an old KG.
In the battle of Basketball Chrises, I’ll make mine Mannix. You will never read anything but the conventional wisdom in Sheridan. In fact, once you read something different in Sheridan, expect it to be part of a trend.
Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that GMs think yall suck it compared to us too.
Click the Link http://www.nba.com/news/features/gmsurvey.misc/index.html
“KG’s bullying of a vastly inferior player”
You know all this keeps coming up again and again. This word “bullying”.
Excuse my french, but when the hell did the NBA become a kid’s playground? You’re making six figures or more, and you’re one of 300 elite athletes in the world. You step on the court, and its not bullying, its opponent vs. opponent.
KG’s intensity doesn’t waver between opponents, the man, always, inevitably, puts on the mask on the court. Christ he get’s into it with his own teammates at practice way back when, we know this. It’s inherent to Kevin Garnett. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing, far from it. It’s what makes Kevin Garnett one of the best players of this decade.
To quote the man himself: “He don’t know you.” He’s just gonna win.
As you notice though it comes from a Lakers site. Thats why its bullying because they know if they face the Celtics in the Finals again they would get whooped once again with a healthy Garnett. What Kobe does is not bullying though. What Kobe did to that woman in his hotel room to them was not bullying either. Their guy is actually a criminal that got away with it but Garnett is the bully go figure. lol
Kevin M, don’t be a tool. Kobe Bryant was accused of raping a girl who within two hours of the incident, had sex with another man. Gimme a break. She was a whore, and a liar. Any woman who is legitimately raped will not want anything to do with sex afterward, especially within two hours of being raped. The case should have been dismissed immediately. And, I’m a lifelong Celtics fan saying this.
Let’s try and keep the tone civil (i.e. judging victims of an alleged rape). If you think the woman lied, that’s fine–I don’t know enough about the legal case to comment either way. But keep the rest of the language out of it, please.
Also, for what it’s worth–that case is a half-decade old. Can’t we all just stop making off-handed snide remarks about it? It’s just old news, the jokes are old, etc.
When KG bodies up to Dwight Howard or Lebron or drops down and barks like a dog while guarding Kobe or Wade then I’ll respect his intensity. But for now he is simply the equivalent of a playground bully. And I know it’s dredging something up, but I’m amazed with the lack of reaction from fans and from the NBA to the amount of vile homophobic slurs he directs at other players.
@Jonathan–If you’ve got a YouTube clip of KG clearly using an anti-gay slur, I’d like to see it. (zclowe@gmail.com)
An amusing rhetorical sleight of hand to put the spotlight on Lakers fans when it is the antics of KG that should be scrutinized (or, alternatively, the mass rationalization that Celtics fans employ to sustain their enjoyment of KG).
Let the record show that when KG actually went after players his own stature such as TD or Dice, KG either got his butt handed to him or backpedaled faster than Carmelo.
Someone who likes to intimidate and pick on others is exactly that, a bully. Why won’t you just call a spade a spade?
Basketball is really a contact sport no matter what anyone tries to say. There are certain superstars that will whine about being touched with a pinky in a game. KG has dominated most players for over a decade now and you rarely ever see him go running to refs saying call a foul when he gets fouled by those players.
IF players like Kobe can whine as much as they want well then leave KG to his (supposed) bullying whomever he wants to do it to. How do you get bullying in basketball thats what I would like to actually know. These are grown men and supposedly they are bullying each other. Good Gosh people let them play the game they want to. Players have been doing what KG has been doing many of years prior to him ever even being born and NO ONE ever called it bullying. ITS CALLED PLAYING BASKETBALL sheesh.
I hope another Celtics fan steps up to bat to respond to my comment because Kevin M is representing horribly for the Celtics fanbase.
Please I see it’s up to me to get crap straight…he doesn’t challenge anybody but no names is ridiculous….get has gotten into with Dice and which they had to be separated and both were suspended, he has gotten into it with duncan in which they both were ejected and he has gotten into it with Ben Wallace…so don’t gimme that crap he only challenges the Calderon’s of the world is simply not true…just cause you started noticing him when got to Boston and seem to forget he played 12 seasons in Minnesota…don’t go trying to say he picks on the week….his intensity knows no limits and backs from no one
So does this mean Gasol got bullied in the Finals by KG? Or does it mean he got schooled by a one of the best players of the decade? Does that mean Michael Jordan bullied everyone in the league? Charles Oakley? Bill Laimbeer? the list goes on and on. My point is, please do not use the word bully when comparing grown men playing pro sports…..it is straight ridiculous. It’s called a style of play. Some have a different style than others. Some are quiet, deadly assassins (read: Ray Allen)
Some are intense: KG, Kobe, Lebron, etc.
Style of play. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
Celts love KG’s style of play. Intense!
If the comparison across decades for KG is Bill Laimbeer…aren’t you proving my point that he is, in, fact a bully?
And please don’t try to paint this picture of KG indiscriminately getting into it with any and all comers. The fact is that since leaving Minnesota he has stopped picking on the Duncans and Dices of the world (and if you watch the video of the Dice fight you’d know why) and focused 90% of his energies on this following roster of NBA badasses: Yi Jianlian, Jose Calderon, Jerryd Bayless, Zaza Pachulia. That’s pretty much like the All-NBA badass 1st team, isn’t it?
By the way, nobody denies that KG is intense. We’ve all had that word shoved down our collective throats many times already. We get it. He’s intense. But so was Michael. And so was Larry. But they also didn’t spend most of their energies hurling obscenities and getting on all-fours against Euro’s either. Big huge gargantuan f*cking difference.
So thanks for proving my point, and come again.
I think Zaza Pachulia is sort of a bad ass.