It is not exactly a secret that Hall of Fame Boston Celtics big man Kevin Garnett talked a lot of trash during games, but it takes an astute observer to realize that it was not just an exercise in breaking down the psyche of an opponent when he did it. Former NBAer Iman Shumpert recently shared how he became aware of that fact as a young player in the league on a recent episode of the Showtime Basketball “All The Smoke” podcast.
“Now KG, he was violating me the whole game,” explained Shumpert. “Shorty (expletive) was talking nutty to me the whole game. That’s cool, though, KG. You made it real for me, you made the league real for me.”
“By like the second time we had played against them, maybe the third,” he continued, “I realized ‘Oh, he’s not all the way talking (expletive), he’s allowing his team to understand where he’s at, if they are in single coverage versus one-on-one.”
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“‘Y’all alone, it’s all y’all, he ain’t on (expletive), Lord,'” mimicked Shumpert. “At first, it was just ‘He ain’t on (expletive).’; I feel like you disrespecting me while I’m handling the ball. But then I realized he’s saying ‘He’s the quarterback, you’re in the clear, it’s one-on-one.'”
“‘Ball screen ain’t coming yet, okay, this is what they are running,’ but he’s saying it how he talks. So I’m like ‘Damn, bro. That’s raw. They know him so well that he’s running the defense. I’m like, you get out here and think ‘This man is gang-banging. This man is real-life quarterbacking this whole defense.’ I appreciated that.”
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