James Harden explains staredown on Wesley Johnson after sick crossover

Jordan Heck

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James Harden explains staredown on Wesley Johnson after sick crossover image

James Harden caught the NBA world's attention Wednesday night with what will likely end up being the crossover of the year.

In the first quarter, Harden was matched up on the Clippers' Wesley Johnson, who stood absolutely no chance. Harden gave a fake, Johnson tripped up, then just fell and stayed down on the court while Harden waited at the 3-point line staring him down.

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The move was as funny as it was disrespectful. I mean, who just stands there taunting their opponent like that? Well, as Harden explained after the game, he wasn't exactly trying to show off, he was more curious as to what was going on.

"It felt good man, I've been in my bag all year so it's just one of those moves where I had to make him dance a little bit and made the shot.

... I was looking at him, and he was looking at me. I was just trying to figure out what he was doing. I was going to shoot it, but I was waiting to see, to figure out what was going on. I was confused. Like did the ref call side out of bounds?"

Even if Harden wasn't trying to be rude, the staredown will be remembered for a quite a while. His coach, Mike D'Antoni was pretty impressed as well.

"It wasn't too bad, was it? It was unbelievable," D'Antoni said. "The game was over and he put it away. It was unbelievable. It's not the first time. I've seen a lot of them. Come on now. That's James."

His teammate, Eric Gordon joined in the amazement as well.

"It was a great move," Gordon said. "Of course, it was crazy. You don't see things like that all the time. I definitely laughed. Everybody is going to be talking about that for a while."

NBA Twitter went wild after the play with an abundance of reactions.

James Harden crossover on Wesley Johnson reaction

Jordan Heck

Jordan Heck Photo

Jordan Heck is a Social Media Producer at Sporting News. Before working here, he was a Digital Content Producer at The Indianapolis Star. He graduated with a degree from Indiana University.