Russell Westbrook and Oklahoma City Thunder rookie Cameron Payne have a pregame routine. It’s extensive and elaborate and borders on interpretive dance. And it’s important to them.
On Monday night, ahead of the Dallas Mavericks’ surprise win over the Thunder, Charlie Villanueva didn’t care. He interrupted the pregame ritual of Oklahoma City’s point guards, per Royce Young of ESPN.com:
Charlie Villanueva tried to get in the way of Russell Westbrook and Cameron Payne's pregame routine: pic.twitter.com/7zhvasINPP
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) April 19, 2016
Westbrook, as you can see, is clearly pissed. He shoves Villanueva and Mavericks rookie Justin Anderson out of the way. The two were clearly playing mind games, which didn’t appeal to Westbrook.
He admitted as much afterward, too:
Durant on Villanueva's pregame dance interruption: "That's fake sh–."
Westbrook: "That's for the guys that don't play."
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) April 19, 2016
To Anderson’s credit, he did actually log 14 minutes in Game 2. So he played. Charlie Villanueva, however, did not play.
Anyhow, this seems like it should be something that goes unspoken, but interrupting Westbrook’s pre-tip jitterbug-ing is a bad idea.
Then again, maybe not it’s not that bad of an idea.
The Mavericks won.
And Westbrook shot an unimpressive 8-of-22 from the floor.
So maybe he and Payne should make it a goal to stage their dance-off before Game 3 somewhere that won’t encourage, um, opponent participation.
