The Detroit Pistons needed a win to strengthen their playoff hopes. Reggie Jackson had just scored eight points in crunch time to give his team an insurmountable lead, and the Palace at Auburn Hills was abuzz the way it had been few times all season long.
It’s understandable, then, why Jackson felt the need to stoke the burning fire of his team’s long-suffering fans with some celebratory gestures in the waning moments of his team’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.
But context is always crucial in the NBA, and it’s fair to say there might have been more behind the Pistons point guard’s antics than met the eye. Why? Jackson, remember, cut his teeth with the Thunder before being dealt to the Motor City at last season’s trade deadline under rancorous circumstances.
Russell Westbrook certainly hadn’t forgotten the way his former backup exited Oklahoma City, and took extra exception to Jackson’s new antics as a result of his old ones. “Honestly, I think it was some real bullsh*t,” he said after the game. Two days later, Kevin Durant fanned his superstar teammate’s flame when he was asked by The Oklahoman’s Erik Horne about resting against Detroit.
I wanted to play against Detroit for sure, but… you know. It’s Detroit. You know, who cares about Detroit?
Perhaps sensing some lingering resentment gleaned from Wednesday night, Horne questioned the 2014 MVP about Jackson’s gestures specifically.
It was bush league, in my opinion. Jumping up and down, running around… I understand you helped them win the game, but our whole team didn’t play. We’d have beat the hell out of them if we did, you know?
And on Friday, Detroit’s Stanley Johnson provided the response that makes one of the league’s unlikeliest potential rivalries seem imminent. Here’s the rookie to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press.
“If [Durant] wanted to have an impact on the game, he should have just played,” Johnson said after this morning’s shoot-around.
[…]
“No one is scared of playing against him on this side of town,” Johnson said. “Next year we have two games scheduled, and I know, for me, it’s circled on my schedule from now on.”
As the Pistons and Thunder reside in separate conferences, they’ll unfortunately meet just two times in 2016-17. And those matchups were primed to be noteworthy already given the ongoing evolution of Stan Van Gundy’s young squad, too.
But now? Detroit and Oklahoma City seem like real rivals. Needless to say, circle your calendar on the dates these clubs face off when next season’s schedule is released. Fireworks may be coming.
