Kyle Kuzma. Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Kyle Kuzma matched shade with shade on Tuesday night.

Kuzma and the Washington Wizards pulled out a thrilling 127-126 victory over the Mavericks in Dallas on Tuesday and made Mavs guard Spencer Dinwiddie salty in the process. Dinwiddie criticized the Wizards after the game for supposedly not playing “winning basketball.”

“For them, it’s a showcase,” said Dinwiddie, per Mavs writer Callie Caplan. “They’re over there trying to get paid, not trying to play winning basketball. For a team that has real aspirations and has an MVP, went to the conference finals last year, we have to be better to a man.”

Those comments were pretty amusing to the Wizards forward Kuzma, who fired back on Twitter by writing of the Mavs, “The funny thing is they don’t play winning basketball.” Kuzma also included a clown emoji plus laughing and waving emojis.

For the Wizards, who are 21-26 this season, they have a couple of players who are in contract years, most notably, Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis. But Porzingis missed the Dallas game with an ankle sprain, while Kuzma played and led Washington with 30 points (including the go-ahead free throw with 5.0 seconds left). Thus, many interpreted Dinwiddie’s comments as a dig at Kuzma specifically.

Dinwiddie generally doesn’t have a lot of love for the Wizards either since he played for them last year and was reportedly unliked by his teammates. But a quote like that one after an L (especially when the Mavs are only 25-24 themselves this season) does indeed feel worthy of several clown emojis.

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