Brian WindhorstESPN Senior Writer6 Minute Read
From Draymond Green to Donovan Mitchell to Klay Thompson to Shannon Sharpe and even a little cameo with former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, you need a scorecard to keep track of the beefs involving 27-year-old Memphis Grizzlies defender and instigator Dillon Brooks.
But when it comes to LeBron James and playoff opponents who have established themselves as defensive rivals — agitators, if you will — you need a history book.
Enter Brooks, a fearless and rugged role player who figures to have an outsize role in the No. 2-seeded Grizzlies’ first-round Western Conference series with James’ seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, starting Sunday at 3 p.m. ET (ABC).
“I wouldn’t mind playing LeBron in a seven-game series,” Brooks declared this week.
“The legacy is there. First time back in the playoffs; knock him out right away.”
Brooks fits the bill of many of the players who have used playoff series to annoy James over the past two decades. Based on the likes of DeShawn Stevenson, Jason Terry, Lance Stephenson and Draymond Green, it’s a tall order to think Brooks could make an entry on the James annoyance ledger over the next two weeks. (But if Brooks does, it will probably be most entertaining.)
Here’s a walk down memory lane for opponents who have irked and gotten to James:
DeShawn Stevenson, 2008
Washington Wizards coach Eddie Jordan announced before the first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers — the third consecutive postseason matchup between the Eastern Conference teams — that his Wizards players aimed to be physical with James.
The plan was for Stevenson to be the tip of that spear — as the primary defender and irritant. And that included media barbs. Before the series had even started, Stevenson described James as “overrated. And you can say I said that.”
That was just the beginning.
“With DeShawn Stevenson, it’s kind of funny,” James said. “It’s almost like Jay-Z [responding] to Soulja Boy. It doesn’t make sense to respond.”
That did it. Soulja Boy himself showed up to Game 3 in Washington, adopting the Wizards. Jay-Z recorded a hit track defending James that debuted at a Washington club.
Sampling Too Short’s “Blow The Whistle,” Jay-Z rapped: “Who the f— overrated?! If anything, they underpaid him. Hatin’ that’s only gonna make him spend the night out of spite with the chick you’ve been datin’. We the best of the best.”
On the floor, the Wizards hammered James with hard fouls and several flagrants, with Stevenson a constant in the mental and physical jousting.
The Cavs won in six games, though, and James averaged 29.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.7 assists. Stevenson played reasonably well, averaging 12.3 points, and he and his teammates were awed that he had gotten such treatment from Jay-Z.
Jason Terry, 2011
“Jet” Terry was a late-game specialist for the Dallas Mavericks, who were on their way to the NBA Finals. James, with the Miami Heat, was assigned to Terry in the fourth quarters as part of the Heat’s game plan.
In the first three games, of which the Heat won two, Terry went scoreless with James as his primary defender. But the trash-talking specialist — who had a Larry O’Brien Trophy tattooed on his bicep before the season began — did not back down.
“Let’s see if he can defend me like that for seven games,” Terry said.
In Game 5, though, Terry buried a deep 3-pointer with 30 seconds left that sealed the victory for Dallas and capped a brilliant 21-point performance off the bench.
After playing one of the worst games of his career in Game 4, when he scored just eight points, James only managed 17 in Game 5. The Mavs famously won the title in six, and James averaged a woeful 17.8 points, nearly 10 below his average.
Stevenson was one of the defenders on James in the series, as well, getting a measure of revenge.
Later, James would get a measure of his own.
Two years thereafter, in 2013, James had one of the signature dunks of his career in a March game with the Heat against the Celtics in Boston. In a tight game on national television, James got loose in transition and threw down an alley-oop jam right in Terry’s face. Standing over him, enjoying the moment, James received a technical foul for taunting.
When Terry signed with the Celtics before that season as a replacement for Ray Allen, who had shocked Boston by defecting to the Heat, Terry put James and the Heat back in his crosshairs:
“My mission is to kill,” he said. “Whoever that is, whether it’s the Heat, whether it’s the Lakers. Hopefully both. That’s my mission, and that’s what I’m here to do.”
James couldn’t help himself but to gloat about the poster.
“It was one of my better ones,” James said. “And the fact that it happened to J.T. made it even that much sweeter. Because I think we all know what J.T. talks, and he talks too much sometimes. I’m glad it happened to him.”
Lance Stephenson, 2012 to 2018
The quintessential James foil, Stephenson started his feud before he was even a rotation player: in the first of a three-year run of series between the Indiana Pacers and Heat in 2012. At the end of the Pacers’ Game 3 Eastern Conference semifinals win, Stephenson wrapped his hands around his neck when James missed a free throw in the second half.
Pacers teammate Danny Granger later said in an interview with Sirius XM that several Heat veterans, including Udonis Haslem and Juwan Howard, tried to confront Stephenson after the game.
“Lance Stephenson? You want a quote about Lance Stephenson?” James said. “I’m not even going to give him the time. Knock it off.”
In the 2014 conference finals, Stephenson was determined to bother James with more than just aggressive defense.
In Game 5, Stephenson famously was caught blowing in James’ ear during a free throw. Something worked because James was off the entire night, scoring a career playoff-low seven points and fouling out for the first time in his postseason career when, of course, Stephenson drew a charge.
Stephenson said James started trash-talking him, which Stephenson considered a win.
“To me, it’s a sign of weakness, because he never used to say nothing to me,” Stephenson said. “I feel like I’m doing something right. And I’m getting under his skin.”
In Game 6, during a stoppage, Stephenson wiped his hand across James’ face and put his fingers in James’ mouth. James, who smirked and ignored the ear blowing, confronted Stephenson. The Heat won the game — with James scoring 25 — and the series.
Years later, in 2018, after James had returned to the Cavs and Stephenson went back to the Pacers after playing with five other teams, they staged another battle in a first-round playoff series that went seven games. James won again, but Stephenson did get a technical foul for a blow to James’ head.
Draymond Green, 2015 to 2018
Historic frenemies, Green and James have become close over time; they share an agent in Rich Paul and have done several media deals together. Last summer, James went to Green’s wedding and posed for a photo with his former Golden State Warriors adversaries in an image that seemed unimaginable a few years ago.
But Green and James will always be connected for what happened in Game 4 of the 2016 Finals.
Green was a crucial part of the Warriors’ defensive game plan on James, and the escalating physical play climaxed in the fourth quarter. The two players got tangled up, and James stepped over Green, who swiped him between the legs. They would get into each other’s faces, with Green uttering some choice words.
Of course, the NBA later assessed Green a flagrant foul, and it led to a suspension for Game 5. Without Green — and later without Andrew Bogut because of injury — the Cavs dominated as James and Kyrie Irving each scored over 40 points in a 112-97 win.
Within days, the Cavs completed the greatest comeback in NBA history by erasing a 3-1 Warriors lead to capture the title.
