Stylin’ on em: When an NBA game is officially over
Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving didn’t even need to do it.
With the Dallas Mavericks up 102-82 over the Los Angeles Clippers with just six minutes left of the closeout game of their first-round matchup May 4 in this season’s playoffs, Mavericks forward Luka Dončić missed a running jumper. The ball was tipped out to Irving, who was standing behind the 3-point line, but Irving missed too.
Another offensive rebound, though, put the ball back in Irving’s hands. There was nothing to play for. The Mavericks led the series 3-2 and, based on the lack of effort on the boards, the Clippers had given up on the game and on the series.
Los Angeles forward P.J. Tucker picked up Irving behind the 3-point line. Irving took it right, then immediately crossed back left. But that was a hesitation dribble, and the Mavericks guard went back right, making poor Tucker look like he was doing a TikTok dance trying to keep up. Irving did a gather-step to create further separation, and launched a leaning 3-point jumper as the shot clock went under 4 seconds.
Nothing but net. Plus a foul to make it a four-point play. The Dallas home crowd went crazy. You can see Dončić at the bottom of the screen, turning away with his hands on his head as the basket went in, as if he were rapper Drake witnessing then-Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant tear his Achilles.
There were still 5½ minutes left in the game, but it was over at that moment. Irving and the Mavericks had snatched the Clippers’ souls in about 10 seconds. There was no comeback from this, no late run was going to keep this series competitive.
Irving, through a few crossovers and an almost impossible jumper, had styled on the Clippers, the final nail in the coffin.
“Stylin’ on ’em” is that moment in a game when a player and/or team does something — a move, a shot, a pass — that is so cold that it completely demoralizes the opponent, rendering the rest of the game moot: It’s over. Stylin’ on ’em unofficially marks the end of a game. With such a seismic level of contempt happening, the receivers of the stylin’ simply can’t recover. It can’t be found in any science book, but that’s fact.
It can be a nasty crossover or breakaway dunk or a no-look pass. Or some combination of them. In Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals, the Minnesota Timberwolves led the Denver Nuggets by 22 with just under 10 minutes left in the third quarter. The game was probably over when the Wolves went on a 29-5 run to end the first quarter, but Wolves guard Anthony Edwards, who promised to a Nuggets employee after a Game 5 loss that he’d see them again in a Game 7 that wasn’t a certainty, was looking for a reason to get his stunt on. Getting his defender Michael Porter Jr. off the ground with the hesi dribble was bad enough, but to then beeline for the lane for an uncontested two-handed dunk was so filthy that Nuggets coach Michael Malone looked dejected as he called timeout. A 24-point lead in today’s NBA isn’t insurmountable, but who are we kidding? That was game right there. The Wolves ended up winning 115-70, making it the second-largest margin of victory ever for a team facing elimination, and would go on to come back from a 20-point deficit in Game 7 to win the series.
When a team is getting styled on, it’s as if for a brief moment the NBA turns into an AND-1 mixtape, where showboating takes precedence over boring terms like “fundamentals” or “schematics.” It’s disrespectful, it’s rude, it’s intimidating. But at the same time, there’s beauty in the ability to be so distracted by embarrassing the opponent and yet still pull off a feat of athletic prowess.
Showboating has such a negative connotation, but that’s what this is. It’s when basketball becomes less about competition and business and more about joy and entertainment. It’s taking a normal play in a game and putting a little extra stank on it as an exclamation point. It’s the embodiment of yelling out “This one is over” or “Get these dudes out of here.”
You could call stylin’ on someone as a sign of disrespect, but that’d be disrespectful to the word disrespect. This is more than that. Embarrassing someone can be accidental. This is intentional ridicule. They’re rubbing your face in it so you never forget that one play from that one game from that one season. The styler wants this moment to be a highlight, a viral moment, a Top 5 moment in one of those YouTube videos about the most amazing plays of the season.
Despite the seemingly freewheeling nature of basketball, it’s actually pretty calculated. It’s a series of moves and countermoves. It’s chess, where you’re always thinking one step ahead of your opponent. Stylin’ on ’em is not that. What’s the formula for a no-look, alley-oop from half court? I doubt “Eastbay dunk on a fastbreak” was in the scouting report. All style and grace goes out the window.
Remember that iconic photo of guard Dwyane Wade throwing an alley-oop to then-Miami Heat teammate LeBron James? That happened within the first four minutes of the first quarter against the Milwaukee Bucks during the 2010-11 season. The score was only 6-2.
But this was the Big 3 era of the Heat when they ran roughshod over the league. James tapped a defensive rebound to Wade, who began sprinting up the court in transition, James barreling behind him. Wade, eyes still forward, bounce-passed the ball behind him, which James collected at the free-throw line before cranking his right arm back as if it were a slingshot and ferociously dunking the ball. Wade and James did that because 1.) They could and 2.) They wanted the world to know that these other dudes — like most of the rest of the league at that time — had no chance.
What makes stylin’ on ’em so beautiful is having the audacity to do it. The margin for error in basketball can be so slim, so to divert from the game plan just to add a little razzle is pretty audacious.
During the 2024 play-in tournament, Chicago Bulls guard Coby White was a step or two in front of Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro when Herro threw a behind-the-back pass to the left corner for a Caleb Martin 3-pointer. White was airborne, so Herro could’ve just done a standard pass. But, no, with the Heat already up 11 points with a playoff spot on the line, Herro wanted this to be the death knell. He did not have to do this, but he wanted to, so he did. The Heat would go on to win by 21 points.
Whenever Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert has the ball in his hands, he looks like me out there: uncoordinated, clumsy, likely to lead to disaster. But taking cues from teammate Edwards — who talked trash straight to Durant in Game 1 of the Wolves’ first-round series against the Phoenix Suns — Gobert had such little regard for a team with three All-Stars that he turned into prime Magic Johnson by dropping off a no-look pass to a cutting Karl-Anthony Towns in the fourth quarter of Game 2 when Minnesota was only up eight points. It was foreshadowing, as the Timberwolves would go on to sweep the Suns.
Stylin’ on ’em can be vindictive too. The Los Angeles Lakers had blown double-digit leads in two of the first three games of their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets. With the Nuggets trying to claw back from yet another double-digit deficit in Game 4, the Lakers finally decided enough was enough. Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell came off a screen, slowed down to hold a collapsing Denver defense, and kept his eyes off target as he threw a no-look lob to a cutting James, who thundered it home. The Nuggets, who had been fighting the possession before, looked dejected after James’ dunk with their heads down as they walked back up on offense, which quickly ended in a turnover. Russell dumped the whole container of Morton salt on the wound when he hit a heavily contested 3-pointer off the turnover. The Lakers went on to win 119-108. But Nuggets guard Jamal Murray’s game winner in Game 5 — his second game winner of the series — put that series to bed in five games.
And therein lies the beauty of stylin’ on your opponent: They can eventually return the favor.
Basketball is beautiful for any number of reasons. It’s the way NBA players make skill look so easy. It’s those clutch moments where the best players rise to the occasion to lead their team to victory. It’s even how wins and losses affect fans on an emotional level. But at its most primal level, basketball is about beating your opponent into submission. It’s just that stylin’ on ’em brings a certain swagger to the victory.
Game winners are cool and ankle-breakers are unforgettable, but those moments where all care and worry are out the window, and the only objective is telling these dudes to get off the court? What more could you ask for?