One of the most endearing things about Joakim Noah is his continued insistence on just not having it with LeBron James and whatever team James happens to be on. There was the time he called out James for his dancing in the middle of a game, the time he called the Heat “Hollywood as hell,” and there he was during yesterday’s game, calling LeBron James a pussy.
This was right after James had been called for a traveling violation and refused to give Noah the ball so that he could inbound it. Noah was a feeling testy all game—he hit James with a pretty hard foul at one point—and he remained so afterward. From ESPN:
“I think we’re a confident group,” Noah said after the game. “And it would be great to play them in the playoffs. It would be very, very exciting, something that I really hope happens.”
[...]
“This is a great place to play basketball,” he said. “Other than that, there’s not much else to do. But when you get on to that court, it’s a great place to play basketball. That’s as much love as I’ll give to Cleveland.”
This is good stuff. The Eastern Conference playoffs are shaping up to be pretty boring, but a Cavs-Bulls series featuring a salty Joakim Noah doing that thing where he spends four games clapping in people’s faces and talking shit is something I can get behind.
[ESPN]