Twitter reacts, Lu Dort trends after defensive stop on LeBron

Lu Dort’s defense on LeBron James got Twitter’s attention near the end of the OKC Thunder’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.

It was after midnight in Oklahoma City when Thunder wing Lu Dort matched up on Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James in overtime with OKC trailing by a point at Staples Center.

Near the baseline on the left side of the court on what would be the Lakers’ final possession, James tried to look around the court and size up Dort, who was playing him tight.

The key word of that sentence: “tried.” Dort’s hand-in-your-face defense was a quite literal textbook example: He was shaking his hand in James’ face, carefully avoiding reaching too much to give James a chance to draw a foul.

James airballed.

The Thunder ended up losing 114-113, but this play was not lost on the NBA Twitter crowd. Dort was trending in the top 10 on Twitter in the wee hours of Thursday.

A large reason for Dort’s name reaching Twitter levels far and wide was Rob Perez tweeting the video.

The other angle is even more impressive.

Bleacher Report picked it up too.

During the Zoom press conference after the game, Dort was asked about the play.

“I wanted to get a stop, that was the main thing,” he said. “I put my hand in his face to mess up his vision. I just wanted to stay in front of him and contest the shot, and that’s what I did.”

In the end, James got the last laugh, as he often does. He knocked away the inbounds pass deep into the backcourt and the Thunder couldn’t get off a halfcourt heave in time.

But Dort struck once again and received some national appreciation.

Related: Thunder’s overtime loss by the numbers

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