James Harden Says He Stared At Wesley Johnson After His Killer Crossover Because He Was ‘Confused’

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The Clippers and Rockets have provided us with some of the best basketball Twitter moments of the season in their two meetings in Los Angeles. The first was the infamous secret tunnel incident that sparked a million jokes and was, for the better part of two days, a non-stop topic of conversation.

On Wednesday, the two met again at Staples Center and this time there were no near-fisticuffs in the locker room, but instead one of the most disrespectful plays in recent memory. James Harden’s crossover-stepback on poor Wesley Johnson sent the Clippers wing tumbling to the floor while Harden stared him down before knocking down a three-pointer to send the Houston bench and everyone watching into a frenzy.


The move was incredible as Johnson was completely crossed up, but so much of the talk was about Harden’s lengthy pause before shooting the ball. Most figured Harden was reveling in the moment and it’d be hard to blame him if he was, but after the game Harden insisted it wasn’t malicious but out of confusion with what just happened to Johnson.

“I don’t know. I was trying to figure out what he was doing,” Harden said with a chuckle. “I mean, I don’t know. I was looking at him and he was looking at me, and I was trying to figure out what he was doing. What he was gonna say, and then I just shot it. … I was gonna shoot it, but I was waiting to figure out what was going on. I was confused. And then obviously I shot it.”

I love that Harden’s move worked so well that it threw him off for a second and he had to figure out exactly what just happened. He wasn’t sure if a foul would get called or something and he wanted to see what Johnson was going to do before launching the three. The crossover will go down as one of the highlights of this season and likely will be shown on Harden’s highlight film for years to come, even if Johnson would prefer it be wiped from the records. The stare down is legendary, but maybe not the intentional display of disrespect we all assumed.

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