“Villain Chasing”: Dereck Lively II Ruins OKC’s Strategy; Leaves NBA World In Chaos Over Viral Chet Holmgren Incident

As the top-seeded OKC Thunder slowly started realizing they might be heading toward a second straight loss against the Mavs, they resorted to an age-old strategy. With Dereck Lively II on the floor, a player who shot a little over 50% from the free throw line during the regular season, the Thunder decided to try Hack-a-Lively on the rookie during the final quarter. And OKC’s desperate attempt to win with head coach Mark Daigneault’s strategy led to a viral ‘Tom and Jerry-esque moment’, sending the fans on social media into a frenzy.

With the Mavs leading by four points and Kyrie Irving bringing the ball down the floor, the right side of the screen showed a hilarious moment with Lively trying to run away to avoid getting fouled while Holmgren chased him around with both arms fully extended. Bumping around and even running into a screen, he eventually managed to catch Lively, and the official blew the whistle. Interestingly, this was earlier known as Hack-a-Shaq. But why?

Gaining popularity after being used on Shaquille O’Neal, as the only way to slow him down was to send him to the free-throw line, the somewhat controversial hacking strategy has been used numerous times in late-game situations on the players who struggle from the charity stripes. However, despite initially trying to avoid getting fouled, Lively ruined OKC’s strategy by making five of his eight free-throw attempts after the Thunder intentionally fouled him four times. Regardless of his abysmal free-throw percentage during the season, Lively came in clutch when it mattered and drained eight of his twelve attempts all night.

Fans left in splits after Dereck Lively II and Chet Holmgren’s ‘hilarious’ chase

Looking like a game of tag amid the live play, the absurdity of Chet Holmgren chasing Dereck Lively II caught everyone by surprise. Soon after the hilarious video made it to social media, fans were quick to comment on the incident. Watching Chet doing his best to catch Dereck, a fan compared the chase to a famous cartoon, “Chet looking like a scooby doo villain chasing after him.”

An individual pointed out, “Seeing Chet like that is hilarious idk why.” After all, not many times do you see two seven-foot behemoths chasing each other on the floor like children. Confused by what they had just seen on the floor, one netizen simply posed the question, “WHAT THE F**K IS GOING ON HAHAHA 😂😂😂”. While the Hack-a-Lively strategy was understandable by OKC, no one expected to see Chet working so hard to make that happen.

After watching Chet fail miserably, a fan even took this incident as an opportunity to take a dig at him, drawing a comparison with Victor Wembanyama, posting, “Wemby gets to him in that situation btw.”

Meanwhile, there was also an individual, who after watching Lively run to avoid getting fouled, claimed, “That’s a man who does not want to take a free throw.” However, it was Kyrie Irving’s motivational words to the rookie when they were on the bench that helped him accept the challenge OKC put forward for him.

During the post-game presser, Kyrie said, “We came back to the bench, and I was like man you don’t have to do all 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.” Lively answered the call by making most of his free throws and shattering OKC’s hope in the process.