Jennings’ fire fueled in Compton
WASHINGTON — Throughout the Washington Wizards' playoff run, Brandon Jennings has lamented through late-night phone calls with close friends, telling them he's not impacting the team enough. Their advice remains the same: Just try to make a difference, Brandon. Be that spark.
On Sunday night at Verizon Center, the shorthanded Wizards will look to tie their Eastern Conference second-round series against the Boston Celtics but will do so without reserve forward Kelly Oubre Jr., who has been suspended for Game 4. Someone off the bench will have to be that spark. Jennings must be grinning, ready to play with fire.
In his own way, Jennings made a difference by sending Thursday's contentious Game 3 into a spiral of bedlam. Jennings returned to his playground days, when he used to talk junk and shame adult men. Early in the fourth quarter of the Wizards' 116-89 rout, he picked up Celtics guard Terry Rozier, nagging him the length of the court and baiting the second-year player into committing two fouls in one second of game time. Less than a minute later, a cacophony of whistles disrupted the action.
Boston Coach Brad Stevens, usually placid to the brink of apparent boredom, grew enraged. Cameras caught Wizards Coach Scott Brooks snarling and shouting even as his player, Bojan Bogdanovic, was about to attempt a free throw. On ESPN, the broadcast team couldn't keep up with all the technical fouls.
Chaos had taken over. But, even as he was ushered off the court after being ejected with two technicals, the instigator was smiling.
Jennings had created a spark - and he left behind a game in flames.
Back in Southern California, Jahmond Dantignac watched the unraveling on his 65-inch big screen and shook his head. Turns out, he taught his baby cousin too well.
“Where we grew up, we talked a lot of smack and you didn't want nobody talking smack to you,” Dantignac said. “So he would do whatever he had to do.”
The Jennings of today - the troll who started a preseason scuffle with Wizards training camp invitee Casper Ware, shoved 7-footer JaVale McGee and pointed a finger gun at Jared Dudley - was burnished on the blacktops of Compton.
“My cousins made me that way,” said Jennings, who is listed as standing 6 feet 1 but that appears to be generous.
“When I was younger, they used to punk me and make me play against older guys. The only way I could play is if I showed toughness and didn't cry. That's where it comes from.”
Back then, Dantignac was a standout high school basketball player. Jennings, 14 years younger, was his shadow. Every park and playground that Dantignac visited in search of pickup games, the runt followed.
Jennings was 4 years old - all arms, big head, no body - and yet the kid thought he belonged, too. At first, the cousins shooed him away. But Jennings whined and so they made a deal: Wipe your tears and we'll let you play.
The cousins were strapping teenagers, and they pushed Jennings around. Hacked the mess out of him. Made him fight and hold his own. This was basketball. Not babysitting.
“Not at all,” said cousin Christopher Phillips, who played high school football and is seven years older than Jennings. “I guess in today's time it would be considered bullying. But not back then.”
Neither did they spare his feelings. If little Brandon really thought he belonged, then he'd get trash-talked just like everyone else. The big cousins didn't realize then, but they were creating a monster.
In games played at Laurel Street Elementary in Compton and Rowley Park in Gardena, California, Jennings had learned a few AND 1 moves by studying the mix-tape legend known as “Hot Sauce.” And some grown man - the poor guy who had to stick Jennings - unwittingly sprawled into his highlight reel.