The Miami Heat evening the NBA Finals with a 111-108 road win over the Denver Nuggets in Game 2 Sunday produced plenty of takes. One of those came from Fox Sports’ Skip Bayless, who decided to blast Nuggets’ star and two-time MVP Nikola Jokić with a claim he was “greasing” in shots:
I have never ever seen a man luck in as many shots as Joker did tonight. We used to call them "greasing" in shots. Tonight Joker was one big tub of Crisco.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) June 5, 2023
Jokić put up a team-high 41 points Sunday on 16-of-28 shooting, also adding 11 rebounds and four assists. The Nuggets’ second-highest scorer was Jamal Murray, who had 18 points on seven-of-15 shooting. And while Jokić’s play Sunday wasn’t perfect (the Nuggets were -11 with him on the floor, the third-worst number on the team), he was still a key figure for Denver, and still had a strong shooting night. Thus, many objected to Bayless’ remarks here. And that list included Hall of Fame coach George Karl, who coached the Nuggets from 2005-2013:
This man is an embarrassment to sports media https://t.co/eyLutuYf6h
— George Karl (@CoachKarl22) June 5, 2023
ESPN’s Jay Williams also weighed in with a questioning of Bayless’ “greasing” term (perhaps it’s an Albany expression?):
https://twitter.com/RealJayWilliams/status/1665701741843578881
And there were lots of other criticisms for Bayless’ take here as well. Some brought up his less-than-stellar playing career:
https://twitter.com/BigEasyBets/status/1665696236500811780
Let’s just nip this in the bud… @RealSkipBayless never played any sport outside of high school. He wasn’t even Valedictorian of his class at Classen. He is a spotlight-craving troll, making his opinion based against the majority. Step up or step aside @RealSkipBayless https://t.co/iSci2NCrp9
— DogGoneSports (@doggonesports1) June 5, 2023
Others wondered if Bayless is in the group of national media that’s been criticized for not watching the Nuggets regularly:
Every Jokic tweet from national sports media makes it really apparent that none of them watched Denver before this playoffs at all lmao https://t.co/WD6cPIkKjt
— Alex Insdorf (@alexinsdorf99) June 5, 2023
You must be having a rough few years watching him luck into all these shots… if you were watching at all https://t.co/JkLuv9I7CW
— Daniel (@CookoutNuggets) June 5, 2023
And still others brought up Bayless’ drama with Undisputed co-host Shannon Sharpe, who looks set to leave that show (and Fox altogether) following the Finals. And that’s led to reporting and commentary on the challenges of working with Bayless and the “final say” he has on Sharpe’s replacement. It’s also led to a lot of people mocking Bayless:
Shannon Sharpe was right about you https://t.co/4oDDPs5L5N
— Mile High Matt (@MileHighMatt12) June 5, 2023
Skip Bayless without Shannon Sharpe next year https://t.co/OObY0JR3Ds pic.twitter.com/e9HigMzYOh
— Mags ✨️ (@magnumTrash) June 5, 2023
This is what having ur co-host leave you does to people https://t.co/Ps6KKQd5XZ
— Jack (@BlitzMal) June 5, 2023
This is only one of the many controversies Bayless has stirred up on Twitter over the years. But it’s interesting to see Karl and Williams amongst the people roasting him here, and to see them doing so in such strong terms.
[George Karl on Twitter; photo of Karl at his 2022 induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame from Wendell Cruz/USA Today Sports]