Goran Dragic, whose name looks and sounds like Dragon but is not, breathed fire all over Russell Westbrook’s performance Wednesday night.
— Goran Dragić (@Goran_Dragic) April 20, 2017
Now, if you’re not like me, a person who immediately understands the meaning and weight that comes with a single emoji tweet, you may have to look up this particular emoji to figure out what the young people are doing here. Well, a flushed face emoji indicates embarrassment. In this case Dragic thinks it’s embarrassing that Westbrook had 51 points on 17-for-43 shooting (along with 10 rebounds and 13 assists) in a 115-111 loss that left his Oklahoma City Thunder in a 2-0 series hole.
Somehow, 51-10-13 was reduced to memes and Westbrook was left talking about how he didn’t care about the line.
Side note: Kobe Bryant shot 22-for-50 and scored 60 points in his final game, which everyone seemed to think was the greatest thing that ever happened in NBA history and isn’t far off from Westbrook’s showing. So why is Westbrook having a slightly off-night in a playoff game after a (presumably) MVP season a reason to jump on him?
Haters gonna hate, as the kids say.
But when you’ve had the career of Dragic, you’ve earned the right to toss shade. Westbrook’s 39.5 shooting percentage from the field is only better than half of Dragic’s shooting nights in 14 playoff games last year. In 2010 — the only other time Dragic made the playoffs — Dragic shot worse than 39.5 percent in eight of his 16 games.
So, in a way, Westbrook’s worst night in the playoffs is an average night for Dragic. Good tweet, though. Thanks for the content.
