Drake is shrugging off critics who claim his courtside behavior is a distraction.
On Tuesday (May 21), the Scorpion rapper pulled out all the stops rooting for the Toronto Raptors, his home team, who went up against the Milwaukee Bucks during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The 32-year-old was spotted cheering, taunting Bucks’ player Giannis Antetokounmpo over missed free throws and at one point giving the Raptors’ coach, Nick Nurse, a back massage.
Although the Raptors went on to win the game in a 120-102 victory, the Bucks head coach, Mike Budenholzer, did address The 6 God’s antics in a conference call on Wednesday (May 22). “There’s certainly no place for … whatever it is exactly that Drake is for the Toronto Raptors,” he told reporters. “You know, to be on the court, there’s boundaries and lines for a reason, and like I said, the league is usually pretty good at being on top of stuff like that.”
Earlier that same day, Antetokounmpo’s rep, Georgios Dimitropoulos, tweeted about Drake’s behavior, calling it “disrespectful.”
“Imagine a gig & an athlete on VIP seats, right next to the band, stands up on the stage just to show off during the entire game, knowing cameras are on him, occasionally even massaging the singer, he wrote in a since-deleted post.
However, Drizzy isn’t taking any of the criticism to heart. The Toronto native responded with a subtle clapback of his own posting a series of photos of himself on the court being his usual exuberant self. He captioned the photo with a shrug and salt shaker emoji, as seen below.
Game 5 will take place today (May 23) in Milwaukee. No word yet if Drake will be courtside with his antics yet again. In the meantime, Drizzy’s music has been banned from one Milwaukee radio station until the series is over.