Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has the ultimate bragging rights right now. He’s the back-to-back reigning NBA MVP and the reigning NBA Finals MVP for at least a few more weeks. Plus, he plays for the reigning champion Thunder, who had the best record in the league at 64-18.
Gilgeous-Alexander is also the NBA’s predominant villain, as he has fairly or unfairly developed a reputation for cartoonish flopping and foul-baiting.
Last week, Tom Haberstroh published an extensive Yahoo Sports! report showing that Gilgeous-Alexander has fallen to the floor way more often than his peers.
Through the first two games of the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, Gilgeous-Alexander had fallen to the floor on 10.7% of his field-goal attempts without getting a foul call in the postseason to that point. He also fell on 51.4% of shots when he was fouled.
One Spurs fan came prepared to let Gilgeous-Alexander know about it in Game 4 on Sunday night.
“There’s a woman courtside here in San Antonio who brought a mini Oscar trophy to present to SGA whenever he hits the deck,” The Athletic’s Sam Amick wrote on X, alongside a video of the fan holding her mini Oscar statuette.
The Athletic’s official X account posted a photo of the unnamed woman holding up the trophy with the inscription “BEST FLOPPER”:
Funny as it is, it likely won’t have the desired effect on Gilgeous-Alexander, who told ESPN after the Thunder won Game 3 in San Antonio on Friday night that Spurs fans’ “flopper” chants didn’t faze him.
“It does nothing,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It doesn’t fuel me. It doesn’t discourage me. It’s part of the game. It’s nothin’. I’ve been dealing with it for a long time. I don’t really hear it. I’m focused on what’s going on on the court.”
Spurs fans only had three quarters to taunt Gilgeous-Alexander in Game 4, which San Antonio won, 103-82. The series is now tied at 2-2.
The Spurs held an 18-point lead after three, so Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault took the long view and sat him for the fourth. Gilgeous-Alexander finished the night with 19 points on 6-for-15 shooting from the field, seven assists, and four turnovers. According to Mike Tirico on the NBC broadcast, Gilgeous-Alexander has shot 31-for-79 (39.2%) from the field in this series.
Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals will take place at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night.
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