Where should Russell Westbrook dance? Charlie Villanueva has ideas
Before Game 2 of the first-round series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks, little-used Dallas forward Charlie Villanueva and rookie Justin Anderson appeared to take exception to the pregame dance routine of Thunder star Russell Westbrook and rookie Cameron Payne, and staged a silent obstructive protest. Westbrook, in turn, expressed his displeasure at the obstacles to his rumpshaking by dancing with great vigor and physical force:
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Clearly inspired by Villanueva’s heroism and stoicism, the Mavericks went on to score a stunning upset of the heavily favored Thunder, knotting their best-of-seven opening-round matchup at one game apiece before the series shifts to Dallas for Thursday’s Game 3. After the loss, Durant (who had one of the worst playoff performances in recent NBA memory, shooting just 7-for-33 from the field with seven turnovers) and Westbrook (who needed 22 shots to score 19 points and was outplayed in the closing stages by lightly regarded veteran Raymond Felton) sneered off the pregame beef:
Unsurprisingly, Villanueva — who has some history with Russ and who, to be fair, didn’t play in Game 2 — had some thoughts on that response, and shared them with FOX Sports:
I’ve heard Russell Westbrook talking about those are for the guys that don’t play. And I don’t necessarily know who he’s talking about, because Cameron Payne and myself, we both had the same stat line. […]
If you want to go dancing and stuff like that, go to a nightclub. Go to a club and dance. Go to “Dancing with the Stars” and be a dancer. You want to battle and dance? We can battle. But not on the basketball game. Not on a basketball game.
Yeah. Heaven forbid players engage in anything entertaining that might disrupt the sanctity of the sport that gives us such purebred competitions as the playoff contests we watched on Tuesday.
I’m glad Villanueva’s enjoying his surge back into the public consciousness; when you’ve faded to the fringes of the NBA landscape, you’ve got to take advantage of whatever opportunities you get to seize the news cycle. Moreover, I’m really glad we’ve found something that can elevate the stakes of Game 3.
Sure, the Thunder need to get back on track after a performance that was at once shocking (7-for-33???) and wholly predictable, and the Mavericks want to establish themselves as not just a spoiler intent on making things more competitive than expected, but a legitimate threat to upset a Thunder team with title aspirations, but we’ll deal with all that stuff once we’ve seen what sort of interpretive/interruptive dance takes place before the opening tip. Priorities, y’know?
For what it’s worth, the Thunder guards don’t seem interested in changing their routine:
… but Russ also doesn’t seem too interested in continuing to discuss this:
Naturally. One can only communicate so much about art so deeply physical and personal with words, anyway.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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