James Harden’s crossover of Wesley Johnson on Wednesday night was an absolute thing of beauty. From the crossover itself to the staredown after it happened, it will likely go down as one of the best plays of the entire 2017-18 NBA season—and it got the reaction it deserved on social media with most NBA fans going wild after it happened.
But believe it or not, there were actually some people out there who weren’t able to find the beauty in what Harden did to Johnson. Rather than focusing on the crossover and subsequent staredown, they pointed out the fact that Harden may have possibly pushed off on the play and forced Johnson to fall by doing it, as if the killer crossover somehow wasn’t the culprit for the crime. As if. Here’s just a small sample of what we’re talking about.
There were so many people yelling "He pushed off!" that it forced a few high-profile NBA fans to push back against their complaints. ESPN’s Jemele Hill, who fired off more than a few jokes at Johnson’s expense, asked #PushOffTwitter to fall back and let everyone have their fun.
Meanwhile, ESPN’s Rachel Nichols put up a Twitter poll asking her fans to pick the more annoying person—the person who thought Harden pushed off or the person who thought he traveled.
Tough to say. But either way, we think we can all agree that those people who chose to use Harden’s crossover as an indictment on the NBA are, officially, the worst. Like, how can you possibly manage to hate on a play that resulted in this going up on Johnson’s Wikipedia page?
Whatever the case, we don’t want to let those naysayers overshadow what was an otherwise fun night on NBA Twitter. So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the best social media reactions that came out of Harden’s crossover on Johnson. Sorry, #PushOffTwitter. Scroll down to see the highlights.
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