The Dallas Mavericks entered Friday night’s home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves as substantial underdogs, and given the nature of the home team’s 2-13 record, that made quite a bit of sense.
However, Harrison Barnes scored 15 points before halftime, and with quite a bit of help from the visitors, Dallas took a 12-point advantage into the break while appearing to be in the driver’s seat.
From there, though, Tom Thibodeau happened, and the head coach’s halftime message to the Wolves was passed along through the prism of star wing Jimmy Butler.
Tom Thibodeau’s halftime message, according to Jimmy Butler: “Do you want an exact quote?”
Yes.
“Do your fucking job, play with fucking energy, and a lot of other f-words.”
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) November 18, 2017
Butler at least asked for clarification on whether the media desired the exact terminology from Thibodeau, but in short, he delivered it. As you may expect by the existence of this information, Minnesota stormed back after halftime, outscoring the Mavs by a whopping 68-32 margin over the course of 24 minutes with Jeff Teague and Andrew Wiggins joining forces with Butler by scoring in double-figures during the second half.
This, of course, isn’t the first time that an NBA head coach delivered a profanity-laced speech at halftime, and that kind of approach doesn’t always work. In this instance, though, the effect was fairly clear, as it isn’t every day you see a more Jekyll and Hyde difference from a single team from one half to the other. That kind of player-coach exchange can become the stuff of legend in a hurry when shared with the media, and well, Butler decided to make it public on the heels of what was a thoroughly dominant half of basketball.
