Throughout the long entirety of the 2019-20 NBA season, many fans had their eyes on two teams that were seemingly on a collision course all year to meet in the Western Conference Finals. Those teams, of course, were the Lakers and Clippers of Los Angeles led by two huge superstar duos in LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, and Paul George. The Lakers held up their end of the deal by reaching the WCFs, but the Clippers were not as lucky. They fell in seven games to the Denver Nuggets in the conference semi-finals, an extremely embarrassing loss considering the preseason expectations as well as the fact that the Clippers were up 3-1 before losing three straight. It seemed like the entirety of NBA Twitter joined in on making fun of the Clippers, including Lakers veteran Jared Dudley who tweeted this as the Clippers were losing in the final moments on September 15th.
😂😂😂😂😂
— Jared Dudley (@JaredDudley619) September 16, 2020
Jared Dudley appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast (part of The Ringer podcast network) on Wednesday, talking about everything that happened within the long Lakers season. When asked how he and the Lakers reacted to the Clippers dropping the ball in the playoffs, Dudley said the following:
“We were laughing. We were laughing. We were laughing in the sense like “I can’t believe it”, I picked them to win game seven, there was no way I thought they were going to lose. Our whole mind was, “We got to beat the Clippers. We want the Clippers.” They wanted us. It was the trash talking that happened — Pat Beverley “check ball” during the pandemic, “Playoff P” talking about he the best, him and Kawhi, Kawhi with the commercials, the crown. We’re seeing all these billboards up here. So when we go to practice every day there’s a Kawhi billboard — we see this billboard every single day. It’s right there.”
It really seems as though that Dudley and the Lakers had the same stuff in their mind that bothered Lakers fans about the Clippers. It’s funny to think of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Dudley, and other Lakers mulling those things over in their brain, with it constantly being reminded to them courtesy of a billboard between the Lakers’ homes and the practice facility. Dudley talked more about the actual game seven that the Clippers lost, and expressed sadness that the world wasn’t able to get that hyped Lakers and Clippers playoff series.
“But you know what, it was just crazy. You see Paul George hit the side of the backboard, Kawhi not having that, but those boys, they didn’t want to be in the bubble. They didn’t want to be there and I don’t blame them for certain times, but, the world needed to see the Clippers and the Lakers and it was unfortunate we didn’t get to see that.”
Dudley also had some interesting comments regarding Avery Bradley and his absence from the bubble as it pertained to the Clippers. Dudley is referencing the play below, although he incorrectly refers to it as a Lakers home game.
“The Clippers were happy Avery Bradley didn’t show up to the bubble, what Bill (Simmons) was saying about Pat Bev, Avery Bradley we stuck on Pat Bev, ripped him in our home game, the one home game we beat them this year and we set a tone like “this is how we are going to guard you”. So we were looking forward to that matchup…”
It’s interesting to hear about how much the Lakers were longing for this matchup, as you can tell the Clippers media blitz really bothered them. Above all though, it’s so funny to hear Jared Dudley throw some shade at the Clippers now that the Lakers have won it all. It may not be as satisfying as beating them in a playoff series, but it’ll do for now.
2 thoughts