Tag: Flop

One play, two flops. What could be the ‘floppiest play’ in NBA history

Marcus Smart’s drive late in the third quarter sent Dennis Schroder flying and Smart airborne in one of the floppiest plays in the NBA.

Awards season just wrapped up with the Academy Awards on Sunday night, but there’s still one honor left that needs to be handed out.

The “floppiest play” in NBA history.

And it just so happens that it came during Sunday’s game between the Boston Celtics and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Maybe Marcus Smart and Dennis Schroder were angling for a last-minute invite to the Oscars.

The play in question happened late in the third quarter with the Celtics leading 82-80.

Being guarded by Schroder and after running him around a high-screen set by Enes Kanter, Smart starting driving into the lane. Schroder tried to slide underneath to draw an offensive foul, flying backward when Smart’s forearm and elbow connected with his chest.

Smart then built upon Schroder’s flop by running into Hamidou Diallo’s outstretched arm, going airborne as if Hami had just intentionally clotheslined him.

In the clip, a smattering of boos can be heard inside Chesapeake Energy Arena as Thunder rookie, Lu Dort, had been called for a similar play earlier in the game.

As for the play itself, it resulted in Schroder’s second foul. Smart would hit both ensuing free-throws.

Boston would go on to win the game 112-111 thanks to a Marcus Smart strip of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander with 5.8 seconds remaining to seal the victory.

But when it comes to the flop, NESN may have described it best, calling it “bad/funny/eye-roll-inducing”.

Armed Forces Bowl: Tulane player pulls off the most ridiculous flop

My man deserves some acting accolades after this one.

Flopping in sports is generally a bad thing. It’s dishonest. Even when it gives your team an edge in competition, it never really feels great to get away with one.

But every once in a while, there’s a flop that’s so brazen that you just have to respect it. The performance is just that good. That happened in Tulane’s game against Southern Miss on Saturday.

Southern Miss was charged with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after quarterback Tate Whatley had his pass intercepted by defensive back Larry Brooks.

There was a bit of a scuffle after the play and running back Trivenskey Mosley ended up with a penalty after he tapped a defensive back who then proceeded to drop into a trust fall with his Tulane brethren.

Give my man an Oscar — he deserves it after that acting job. It’s already in slow motion from the replay. All we have to do now is pull out the music from the Titanic and we’ve got ourselves a masterpiece. This is too good.

Flopping should never be condoned, but if you’re going to flop this is the way to do it. Just lean all the way in — literally.

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Patrick Beverley becomes first player to get fined for flopping since 2016

Of course it’s Patrick Beverley that breaks the streak.

The NBA had a flopping problem earlier this decade that it tried to solve by fining players $5,000 for each time they flopped after receiving an initial warning.

It didn’t really work. Players kept flopping and still flop to this day. It’s part of the game now and, after a certain point, the league just flat out stopped issuing the fine.

The last player have a fine publicly announced for flopping was Marcus Smart on April 21, 2016 for acting doing his best Jazzy Jeff impression after simply being boxed out by Kyle Korver.

Things were quiet on the flop fining scene until Saturday. Patrick Beverley just took things too far Friday night against James Harden and the Houston Rockets.

He was fined after he acted like James Harden performed an exorcism on him with a jab step.

The concept of fining a player for a flop is a bit much, but you can’t really blame the league for this one. That was ridiculous — even for Beverley’s standards.

This is the first time we’ve seen a flop fine in three years, but it might not be the last time we see it in this year. We’ve got a lot more national television Patrick Beverley left to go this season.

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