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Andrew LopezESPN
NEW ORLEANS — A little over a week after an Instagram post by Los Angeles Lakers small forward LeBron James made Josh Hart go viral in the wrong way, the New Orleans Pelicans‘ guard decided to have some fun on Friday night — his 25th birthday.
On Feb. 26, James posted a picture on his page to his 61,000,000-plus followers that showed him getting up for a dunk against the Pelicans from the night before. Hart was trying to defend James on the play and one of the pictures caught him in a precarious position.
The post has attracted more than 2.7 million likes and one comment in particular picked up a lot of steam as Rihanna posted: “Anybody check on Hart?”
Hart took the comment in stride and sported a sweatshirt made by a friend with the comment as he walked into Friday night’s game against the Miami Heat.
“Yeah, LeBron posted a photo of it — of the dunk. He made it look real bad,” Hart said following the game Friday. “It wasn’t as bad as it looked, but Rihanna commented on it. So as a joke, I just played it, ‘Hi Rihanna, how ya doin?'”
The birthday boy arrives…
With a new hoodie 😂
👋 @rihanna pic.twitter.com/qm8eYoMMpV
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) March 6, 2020
Hart and his teammates were all smiles following the close 110-104 win that kept them four games behind in the chase for the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoff race. Hart’s play off the bench had a big role in the victory.
He finished with 19 points and 12 rebounds to help lift the Pelicans to the victory. He came up with a clutch shot in the fourth quarter as well when the Heat used a 7-2 run to cut the lead to 97-96. On the following possession, Hart drained a 3-pointer as the shot clock was winding down to put the Pelicans back up by four.
“Obviously he made the biggest shot of the game for us,” Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry said. “I just thought he was good all around, defensively he was good, getting to the board and at least having some physicality on the boards. He did a good job with that also.”