Last night, in an otherwise forgettable mid-February game between two teams heading in opposite directions, Washington Wizards guard Kirk Hinrich provided a hilarious highlight-reel play when he crossed over Orlando Magic guard J.J. Redick so sharply he sent Redick sprawling to the court on his backside, prompting Redick to feebly grab Hinrich's ankles as he drove by. The play drew gasps and laughs from the Amway Center crowd, while Redick's Magic teammates struggled to contain their laughter from the bench and on the court.
Yahoo! Sports' Ball Don't Lie blog has video of the play and the Magic's reaction; keep watching until the end of the clip, when Magic point guards Jameer Nelson and Chris Duhon re-enact the play from the sidelines during a timeout.
The play had the Ball Don't Lie crew of Kelly Dwyer, Dan Devine, and Eric Freeman searching for AND1 mixtape-caliber nicknames for the two players; my personal favorite is Freeman's "Chamomile Thunder," though Freeman himself prefers "Pressed Slacks Attack" and "Musket."
Additionally, the Orlando Sentinel's Jacob Langston snapped a great photo of Redick on his rear-end during the play, which Langston's Sentinel colleague Josh Robbins supplemented with video of Magic center Dwight Howard talking about it in the post-game locker room.
If nothing else, the hubbub around Hinrich's ankle-breaking move shows there's always a reason to flip on any NBA game, no matter how ugly the score, or caliber of teams involved, suggests it might be. Dwyer admits he "miss[ed]" the play while he "jumped from game to game" last night, for example. Luckily, we have Twitter and the basketblogosphere to help us get caught up.
In case you're curious, Orlando topped Washington, 101-76. The Magic led by 25 at the time of the play.