“Villain Chasing”: Dereck Lively II Ruins OKC’s Strategy; Leaves the NBA world in chaos over the viral Chet Holmgren incident

When the top-seeded OKC Thunder began to realize that they might be headed for a second straight loss to the Mavs, they resorted to an age-old strategy. With Dereck Lively II on the court, a player who shot just over half from the free throw line during the regular season, the Thunder decided to try Hack-a-Lively on the rookie in the final quarter. And OKC’s desperate attempt to win with head coach Mark Daigneault’s strategy led to a viral moment involving rookies Dereck Lively II and Chet Holmgren and even sent fans on social media into a frenzy.

With the Mavs leading by four points and Kyrie Irving bringing the ball down, the right side of the screen showed a hilarious moment of Lively trying to run away to avoid a foul while Holmgren chased him around with his arms outstretched. Holmgren bounced around and even ran into a screen, but eventually he managed to catch Lively and the referee blew the whistle.

The somewhat controversial hacking strategy grew in popularity after it was used against Shaquille O’Neal, as the only way to slow him down was to send him to the free throw line from the charity stripe. Although Lively initially tried to avoid a foul, he ruined OKC’s strategy by making five of his eight free throw attempts after the Thunder intentionally fouled him four times. Despite his abysmal free throw percentage on the season, Lively came into play when it mattered most, sinking eight of his 12 attempts throughout the night.

After Chet Holmgren’s viral chase, fans went wild

The absurdity of Chet Holmgren chasing Dereck Lively II, looking like a game of tag in the middle of the live game, surprised the NBA world. Shortly after the hilarious video hit social media, fans were quick to comment on the incident. As a fan watched Chet do his best to catch Dereck, he compared the chase to a famous cartoon. “Chet looks like a Scooby-Doo villain chasing after him.”

One fan pointed out how funny it was to see Chet in this position. “Seeing Chet like that is hilarious, I don’t know why.” After all, it’s not often you see two six-foot giants chasing each other on the ground like children. Confused by what they had just seen on the floor, one fan simply asked the question: “What the fuck is going on hahaha 😂😂😂” While the Hack a Lively strategy was understandable for OKC, no one expected Chet to work so hard to make it happen.

After witnessing Chet fail miserably, one fan even used the incident as an opportunity to lash out at him, claiming that Victor Wembanyama would have caught Lively if he had been in the same situation. “By the way, Wemby comes to him in this situation.” Meanwhile, there was also a fan who watched Lively running to avoid getting fouled and claimed: “This is a man who doesn’t want to make free throws.”

However, it was Kyrie Irving’s motivational words to the rookie while he was on the bench that helped him rise to the challenge that OKC set for him. During the postgame press conference, Kyrie said, “We came back to the bench and I was like, ‘Man, you don’t have to do any of that, just let them foul you, accept it, take it as a compliment and go up there and knock down your free throw.’ We believe in you.” And Lively answered the call by making most of his free throws, dashing OKC’s last hope in the process.