It had been a long and frustrating sequence for Jeff Teague. He’d had his shot blocked twice by terrifying rubber giant Karl-Anthony Towns. The refs had missed a possible eight-second violation on the Timberwolves. Andrew Wiggins hit a crazy and-one. A tie game had become a six-point deficit with a little over a minute left to play.
It’d been a frustrating night, too. The Hawks spent the first 2.5 quarters getting run off their own court by the young, spry, unselfish Wolves; they trailed by as much as 34 at one point. Wiggins was doing stuff like this:
The Hawks had run themselves ragged erasing that 34-point deficit, only to have those tireless young turks gambol out in front again. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! The Timberwolves were supposed to be pushovers, dammit! The veteran Hawks, Eastern Conference runners-up last season, playing on their home court, were supposed to be the ones getting all the calls and breaks.
And so, at the end of this long, frustrating sequence at the end of this long, frustrating night, Teague put his head down, flung himself at the summit of Mount Towns one last time ... and bounced off Towns’s chest like a Nerf dart. He didn’t even get a whistle for it. This was it, man. Jeff Teague was fed up!
But, Jeff, what do we do when we’re frustrated? Do we lash out at others? Nooooo, Jeff. We use our words when we’re fru—
Jeff! You take a timeout right this instant, mister! (Skip to 1:10 in the video to see the blow, if it doesn’t automatically start there.)
Okay, in all seriousness, this is some punk-ass shit. Even if you think Towns fouled Teague, there—he might have, whatever—poor Nemanja Bjelica hadn’t even done anything, man. All he did was get a rebound and pass the ball to Ricky Rubio. He wasn’t even looking! And Jeff Teague whacked him right in the face. Jeff Teague is kind of a shithead.
On the other hand, the referees missed it. Jeff Teague finally got a call! Good for him. He’ll probably catch a fine today. The Hawks lost by ten.
Top photo via Getty; Wiggins dunk video via NBA on YouTube; Teague video via NBAHighlightsDaily on YouTube
Contact the author at albert.burneko@deadspin.com or on Twitter @albertburneko.