Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jalen Williams is potentially one of the breakout stars of the 2024 NBA postseason.
During his first game of the playoffs, he and New Orleans Pelicans big man Jonas Valanunucias got into a brief kerfuffle. You can watch the dust-up as it happened below, but what you need to know is both parties wanted the ball and neither was willing to back down.
During the back-and-forth, Valanunucias yelled at Williams — who seemed genuinely unfazed by the interaction. If anything, it may have just fired him up a little bit.
Then, if you’ve watched the Thunder a lot this season, something very predictable happened: Williams started barking like a dog, which is what Oklahoma City players often do during postgame walk-off interviews.
Dogs have that JDub in them. Jalen Williams is already a Thunder legend. pic.twitter.com/XBz9fznqur
— Carson Cunningham (@Carson_OKC) April 22, 2024
If you watch to the end of that video, you can see Williams literally barking at the home crowd in Oklahoma City to get them hyped.
Or just watch the clip below to see the highlight of the bark itself:
J Dub barking lol pic.twitter.com/ywv6XAzAnG
— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) April 22, 2024
After the game, which resulted in an Oklahoma City victory, Williams was asked about what happened during this possession.
His answer was honest, funny, and genuine to the identity of the team.
Jalen Williams on the tie-up with Jonas Valanciunas:
“He yelled in my face and picked me up off the floor … so I just barked,” pic.twitter.com/CP5o0LShDd
— Derek Parker (@DParkOK) April 22, 2024
Here is what he said:
“He yelled in my face and he picked me up off the floor. So I just barked. I don’t know. It was a good energy the whole time. I thought that was pretty cool. I got to bark with the fans. They barked back. Just competitive juices going, both fighting for the ball, it’s kind of playoff basketball. It wasn’t like anything mean. We were just both going at it … It’s kind of hard to recover. Like I said, he picked me up off my feet. I didn’t really have a great response other than to bark.”
Williams and the crowd both continued to lovingly bark at each other as the game progressed.
Then as the game ended, Oklahoma City’s stars (including Williams) all barked during TNT’s walk-off interview.
