Late on Friday night, the Los Angeles Clippers picked up an impressive and important win over the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder, 118-110. A big reason for their victory was the play of Patrick Beverley, who despite scoring zero points was one of the most impactful players on the floor.
He grabbed seven rebounds, dished out six assists, and most importantly played some fantastic defense on Paul George. The Thunder MVP candidate finished with 15 points on a just 5-of-16 shooting, and fouled out -- along with Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams. Following the game, he sounded off about the officiating, for which he was later fined $25,000. Via ESPN:
"It's just bad officiating," George said after the game. "I'm sorry, just bad officiating. We don't get a fair whistle. We haven't gotten a fair whistle all year. ... Somebody's got to look into this. It's getting out of hand, where we somehow just walk teams to the line. And there's nobody that gets more contact. If I don't speak for myself, I speak for Russ. There's nobody that gets more contact than Russ going to the basket. And it's just crazy."
George's complaint riled up his nemesis in the game, as Beverley had words for him on Saturday. "Men lie, numbers don't. He tried to blame the refs. Naw bra bra!!!," Beverley wrote on Twitter in a quote tweet of a video clip showing his defense on George.
George responded, telling Beverley to stop talking, but the Clippers guard just showed the same intensity online that he does on the court. "Never knew you for the excuse type," Beverley wrote. "I locked you up last night."
Stop it pat lol LA has gave you a platform now but stop it bra bra!
— Paul George (@Yg_Trece) March 9, 2019
@Yg_Trece never knew u for the excuse type. Give credit if credit is due. I locked u up last night. I won the Battle last night. Plain and simple.
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) March 9, 2019
It's hard to argue with Beverley's account of what happened on Friday night. As the video clip he shared showed, he truly did make life difficult for George.
These two teams don't meet again in the regular season, so we might have to wait a while to see them renew this rivalry on the court. Unless, that is, they meet up in the playoffs. The Thunder are currently just half a game out of third place, while the Clippers are only percentage points out of sixth, making a 3-seed vs. 6-seed first round matchup a definite possibility.
