What Happened to the Game I Love?

About

What Happened to the Game I Love? is a quote from NBA commentator Mark Jackson after voicing his disgust at a flagrant foul call against Lakers player D'Angelo Russell against the Denver Nuggets in the 2023 Western Conference Finals. The quote has since been used on social media to bemoan the states of various competitive activities, from video games to sports, usually due to rule changes or frustrating play.

Origin

On May 18th, 2023, Mark Jackson was part of the commentary team calling Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the NBA's Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers. In the first quarter, D'Angelo Russell fouled Nuggets player Jamal Murray.^[1] The referees paused the game to review the call and decided it was a flagrant foul, giving the Nuggets an additional foul shot. After the call, both Jackson and color commentary partner Jeff Van Gundy were irate, and Jackson said, "What happened to the game I love?" (repost of the clip from @hoops_bot shown below).

Spread

The quote was instantly celebrated on social media, and later on May 18th, 2023, the first "quote card" with the quote, a la "I wasn't familiar with your game," was posted on Twitter by im_t_rain,^[2] gaining over 20 retweets and 920 likes in seven months (shown below).

The image was reposted to meme communities on Reddit^[3] and iFunny^[4] over the coming months. Additionally, the quote became widely used to bemoan the states of competitive activities, mostly sports and video games. For example, on July 5th, 2023, Twitter^[5] user @big_business_ used it about the announcement of the NBA's "in-season tournament," gaining over 240 retweets and 1,100 likes in five months (shown below, top). On August 30th, user @yeaitstrill posted the quote with a clip of vulgar voice chat in Call of Duty after Activision announced it would work to curtail such talk, gaining over 20 retweets and 380 likes in three months (shown below, bottom).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References