Los Angeles Clippers guard Patrick Beverley is not the type of player that stands out in the box score. He's definitely not the first guy you think about when talking about the star players of his team. Nevertheless, make no mistake about it: the 6-foot-1 combo guard is as important a player on his squad than any other guy on the roster.
Beverley's contributions for his team go way beyond the stat sheet. He is a tenacious defender and is widely considered as one of the best in his position. However, perhaps where he stands out the most is the combination of his feisty nature, his no-nonsense demeanor, and the ability to consistently get into his opponent's head.
Simply put, Beverley is not afraid of anyone. And we mean anyone. Below are some of his most memorable confrontations on the basketball court.
Russell Westbrook
Patrick Beverley has a bunch of guys who he considers to be his nemesis, but there's no denying that Russell Westbrook is at the very top of his list.
The history between these two go way back. This all started (probably) in the 2013 playoffs when Beverley, who at that time was a rookie playing for the Houston Rockets, went for a steal on Westbrook as the latter was calling a timeout. This resulted in an awkward collision between the two, which, unfortunately, caused Westbrook the remainder of the postseason because of a torn meniscus.
The Thunder were the top seed in the West that year after posting a 60-22 record in the regular season, but without Westbrook, they fell to the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round.
Here's a look at the play in question:
For the record, years later Beverley vehemently denied trying to hurt Westbrook on purpose, but also refused to apologize because in his mind, that was a legitimate basketball play:
“For some reason he thought six or seven years ago that I tried to hurt him. Of course that wasn’t the case but as a basketball player I’m not going to apologize for it so you’ve got to ask him.” (h/t Anthony Duckett of Fansided)
The following season, Beverley and Westbrook were matched up against each other, and a similar incident transpired again with Beverley trying to get a steal from Westbrook right before a timeout. Naturally, Westbrook was incensed.
These guys have since been going at it every opportunity they get. At one point, the police were even asked to intervene:
Police have been brought onto the court to keep Westbrook and Beverley away from each other pic.twitter.com/FAlF1fm8gD
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) October 31, 2018
Stephen Curry
Patrick Beverley has a knack for going after the best player on the opposing team. It's also because he's one of, if not the best defender on his team, and is always assigned to guard the biggest offensive threat on the opposition. Case in point is former back-to-back MVP winner Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors. As you will see in the highlight reel below, however, things don't always work in the favor of Beverley.
Joel Embiid
By now you may be thinking that Beverley only takes on guys his own size. Well, let me show you the time he locked horns with 7-foot big man Joel Embiid:
Kevin Durant
Beverley has also been in the face of Kevin Durant on more than one occasion. Their most memorable face-off has got to be during the 2019 playoffs when the Warriors took on Beverley's Los Angeles Clippers. Durant knew all along what Beverley was trying to do, but despite this, Beverley still got in his head. That's how good of an irritant Beverley is.
LeBron James
Another one of Beverley's favorites is none other than LeBron James. After all, LeBron is one of the best players in the league, so of course Beverley would target him. In the clip below, you can see how much LeBron just wanted to get into it with Beverley. Kudos to James for keeping his cool, though (relatively).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nxm3zx-Hw4
Devin Booker
Talking about things not going in the way of Beverley, he was once completely outplayed by a hot-handed Devin Booker. The Phoenix Suns guard is not the silent type as well, and he made sure to let Beverley know what was up all night long — especially when he ended up fouling out Beverley on an and-1 play.
Anthony Davis
Beverley does everything he can to prevent his opponents from being effective. Sometimes, he goes overboard. Remember the time he literally threw away Anthony Davis' shoe during a game? The best part was that Beverley wasn't even on the court at the time of the incident.
Here's our very own mixtape of Pat Beverley's most confrontational moments. This compilation is over four minutes, so needless to say, Bev has had more than a few feisty moments in his career.
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