Kevin Garnett just made sure there’s no sleep till Brooklyn (apologies to the Beastie Boys) by giving us a gem of a soundbite. In the the locker room post game media session after the Brooklyn Nets dropped game two to the Toronto Raptors, KG had this to say:
Kevin Garnett: “I don’t know if you can say ‘F*** Brooklyn’ and then come into Brooklyn. So we’re about to see what it’s like.”
— Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) April 23, 2014
That is of course in reference to Raptors GM Masai Ujiri who screamed “F— Brooklyn” while addressing a crowd of enthusiastic fans at the Maple Leaf Square outside the Air Canada Centre before the Nets’ 94-87 victory over the Raptors in Game 1. (You can watch the video here, but warning for strong language, obviously.)
The expletive cost Ujiri $25,000, as he the league fined him for the NSFW outburst. However, maybe it was worth it for the publicity. Sure, I still had to look up the name of the Raptors GM after this, but at least it prompted to actually go and research the name of Toronto’s General Manager. I certainly wouldn’t have done that prior to his f-bomb.
Now a lot of people actually know the name of the Raptors GM. Or at least at lot more than knew who he was last week. Kevin Garnett and company are now tied in the series 1-1, giving Brooklyn de facto home court advantage. It’s been a very colorful series filled with trash talk on both sides, and we’re not even to game three yet.
You had the “f— Brooklyn,” the Toronto Sun’s antagonistic headline ‘Raptors versus Dinosaurs,” Paul Pierce’s Jurassic Park style celebration mocking that headline after he hit a big shot in game one, and now Kevin Garnett’s statement.
This is going to be one interesting first round series.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also a frequent guest on national talk radio. Banks is a former contributor to NBC Chicago and the Washington Times, who’s been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)