Game 2 of the Phoenix Suns’ series with the Los Angeles Lakers promised to be testy. Emotions boiled over during the first game of the series, which saw the Suns come out on top, and as a result, the defending champions faced an unenviable situation against a frisky, up-and-coming team that can legitimately win four out of seven against them.
Of course, exactly how things were going to get testy was unknown until about a minute in, at which point it got more testes than testy. Anthony Davis stared down Jae Crowder after the veteran swingman picked up an early foul, and by way of a quick jumper that happened before Crowder could pull his hand out of the way, there was just enough contact to have him pick up a second.
But Davis also got his money’s worth, kicking out his right foot on the jumper and getting Crowder squarely below the belt.
Anthony Davis kicks Jae Crowder in the nuts, rough week for male reproduction in sports pic.twitter.com/vVtMAveT4W
— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) May 26, 2021
Plenty of questions will be asked about how, exactly, Davis did this and whether or not it was intentional. He ended up picking up a flagrant 1 as a result of this, and unsurprisingly, Kevin Harlan of TNT had a little fun with the whole thing.
“there is not a lot of protection down there though, unfortunately for crowder”
-kevin harlan pic.twitter.com/AgxMexTeKX
— Dan Favale (@danfavale) May 26, 2021
Here’s to hoping Crowder’s ok, because this looked like it hurt a lot.