Immediately following Game 2, an embittered Dave Fizdale sat before members of the media and, for 80 inspired seconds, proceeded to rail against the game’s foul disparity and the lack of respect he felt his team received. The Internet couldn’t have fallen in love with his pithy epilogue any more had he declared then and there that he was The Batman.
Never mind that Memphis had the NBA’s worst opponent free-throw rate in the regular season, or that his comparison of “the league’s most rugged guy” Zach Randolph and Kawhi Leonard doesn’t really carry weight, since Leonard averaged nearly three times as many free throw attempts in 2016-17 — Fizdale didn’t like that his team’s attempts around the basket had earned such few whistles and he riffed on it in a very memorable, meme-able way.