Don’t talk back to Kevin Garnett
Like him or not, Kevin Garnett, who turned 39 on Tuesday, is one of the greatest trash talkers in NBA history.
In an excellent oral history of Garnett’s career on Bleacher Report, Paul Pierce recounted a story from KG’s first season with the Boston Celtics in which he crushed the spirit of long-haired Chicago Bulls forward Joakim Noah.
“One time, he asked Noah if he could rub through his hair, like a female or something … And I know that kind of made (Noah) hot,” Pierce recalled. “And this was when Noah was a rookie, too. I remember Noah looked up to KG. He was like, ‘Man, KG, I had your poster on my wall, I looked up to you, man.’ And then (Garnett) just said something like that, and was like ‘(Bleep) you, Noah.’
“I was like, ‘Whoa.’ This kid fresh out of college, looks up to KG, just said he had his poster on the wall, and he tells him that! It crushed him. It crushed Noah.”
Miami forward Chris Bosh also fell prey to Garnett’s incessant chirping, which he admitted got the best of him during a Heat-Celtics playoff game in 2011.
“Usually I don’t talk back, but if he said something to me, I said something back,” Bosh told Bleacher Report. “I had just a terrible game for me. He got me all off my game. He scored, like, four times in a row on me in the crunch. And I was so embarrassed and so upset, and he got in my head. Ever since that day, I never said anything else.”
Happy Birthday, Big Ticket.
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33.
