Oklahoma City Thunder: Perkins vs. Duncan, by osmosis

Tim Duncan hates Kevin Garnett. So says Chris Ballard’s recent Sports Illustrated profile of Duncan. The Spurs superstar and Garnett have been combatants for 15 years.

Here’s an excerpt: “Duncan hates Kevin Garnett. Hates him the way liberals hate Sean Hannity. This information comes from very reliable sources, who talk about how KG has made a career of trying to punk Duncan, baiting him and slapping him and whispering really weird smack into his ear. They talk about how funny this is, because the worst thing you can do as an opponent is piss off Duncan…” You can find the entire profile here:

With the Thunder-Spurs Western Conference Finals approaching, we’re going to see an awful lot of Duncan in the next week or two. And you know what that means.

If Garnett has declared war on Duncan, Kendrick Perkins will follow suit. Perk is a loyal ally of Garnett, his mentor with the Boston Celtics before Perk was traded to Oklahoma City.

“It got to,” said the man I like to call Gran Torino. “That’s my mentor, that’s my big homie. So I just follow his lead. That’s how it is. It’s nothing personal. Just what it is.”