Last night, Kevin Durant resorted to mind games before saving the Suns from embarrassment. The Valley side hosted the Washington Wizards and it wasn’t an easy win for them. Perhaps the home side took them way too lightly. Usually in this season, the Wizards have put up an early fight but eventually struggled to take it to the second half. That has mostly been the case for the 38 losses. However, last night was just different.

Taking on the 15th seed, the Suns ran them down right from the get-go. At the end of the first half, KD & Co. headed to the tunnel with a 15-point lead. At that time, it seemed like a cakewalk from there, considering the Wizards’ second-half woes. Well, that wasn’t the case. Kyle Kuzma showed signs of resistance in the third quarter, producing a 32-28 run, reducing the lead to 11 points.

Then they doubled it down in the fourth quarter, bringing down the deficit to 4 points with 2 minutes left in the game! Suddenly, the Footprint Center began to feel the tension, and the nerves had just started to kick in. However, this wasn’t the case for Kevin Durant.

At the 1:25 mark, Suns’ Nick Richards headed to the FT line with the opportunity to add two more to the lead. Sensing the pressure on his teammate, the Slim Reaper pulled out his good old trash-talking to assert domination. While Richards made both his FTs, KD went around screaming, “Ain’t no pressure against y’all n—-s, ain’t no pressure against y’all n—-s,” at the Wizards bench.

Well, it definitely seemed to have worked for the Phoenix Suns. For the remainder of the game, the visitors’ offense stayed stagnant and the Durant-led side walked away with a 109-119 win.

Kevin Durant – a professional trash talker?

Apart from the headline-worthy action on the court, trash-talking also plays a part in the game. While it doesn’t fetch you direct points, it definitely plays a mental game in the opponent’s head. And it looks like Kevin Durant has championed it through the course of his career. Much like other elite names he shares the bracket with. We have two players vouching for that fact as well. Firstly, Draymond Green, who is a certified instigator and a trash talker, recently spoke highly of KD’s trash-talking abilities in his pod. He said, “All these slick one-liners… KD would hit you with a crazy one-liner, like, out of nowhere. I would enjoy those moments.” 

Moreover, Zion Williamson recently went a bit further and gave a closer look at what is it like to face the 2x NBA Champ. The Pels forward said, “You have KD who will talk trash, but KD’s trash talking is more of like dude I’m just a better hooper. How he goes about it, is like I can’t do nothing but respect it.”

Speaking of respect, though, Kevin Durant also knows when he’s beaten. So, in no way does he push his aggressiveness needlessly. The prime example was last season when Anthony Edwards was all over the Suns star talking smack right in the face. Well, there was no point in saying a thing, because the Slim Reaper probably knew his team ain’t coming back. In reality, they did not and were swept.

So, the Slim Reaper knows what he is doing on the court, using his sharp tongue to deceive the opponents. What do you make of it? Let us know in the comments below.