JaVale McGee had a really bad day yesterday.
It started early in the Wizards loss to the Houston Rockets after Chandler Parsons dunked on him and then rode his head like a mechanical bull.
Then in the third quarter, with his team down 64-58, McGee ran ahead on a fast break and dropped an NBA Street style off the backboard dunk.
And of course, it got him benched by head coach Flip Saunders.
When asked about it after the game, McGee said the following.
“Apparently, if you get a fast break and throw it off the backboard in the third quarter, and you’re 1-11, you’re not supposed to do stuff like that. I feel like I was trying to get the team hyped and make a good play. I felt like we did that – and we went on a run there.
Saunders explained the benching after the game.
“We’ve got to get to where those plays, you know we identify with meat and potato basketball, playing hard, setting screens, playing the right way and not highlight type things and we’ve been saying that many times. You know we have some players that look for highlights rather than substance.”
A lot of people are calling McGee’s actions unacceptable and that it was disrespectful to showboat when you are losing.
What a crock.
If this was garbage time and they were down 30 I would understand the anger, but they were down 6 in the middle of the third quarter. McGee is a prolific dunker so the degree of difficulty wasn’t that high and a thunderous fast break dunk could have served as a catalyst to energize the crowd and his teammates.
But of course, it wasn’t a fundamentally sound bounce pass followed by a lay up, so he gets benched.
Man, I bet Flip wonders who he pissed off to end up coaching this crew.