Metta World Peace struggles with shooting ... then spelling

Metta World Peace’s birthday didn’t quite go as planned.

The Lakers trailed by two points in the final seconds of Tuesday’s game against the Spurs. World Peace inbounded the ball. He looked to pass to Kobe Bryant but the Lakers superstar was tightly covered by Kawhi Leonard, so he threw the ball to Pau Gasol, who missed a 24-foot three-pointer as time expired.

Bryant was clearly peeved by World Peace’s decision on that play, but nothing could get the 33-year-old birthday boy down after the game.

“It was a good shot,” World Peace said. “The telepathy was off a little bit.”

World Peace soon realized that something else was off.

“What does telepathy mean?” he asked. “Is that even a word?

When a reporter suggested that perhaps World Peace should have used the word “trajectory,” World Peace beamed.

“You must be like a scientist,” he said.

He then spent the next 20 seconds trying to spell the word.

“T-R-A, don’t say it,” he said. “T-R-A, tell me that’s right.”

Spelling wasn’t the only thing that World Peace struggled with that night.

World Peace finished with 12 points on four-for-14 shooting and he was a woeful two-for-eight from the three-point line.

“I knocked down some shots in the end,” World Peace said, optimistically.

The Lakers were so short-handed with Steve Blake and Steve Nash sidelined with injuries, that World Peace even tried his luck at the point guard position for a short while.

“It’s something I did for a long time when I was a kid so it wasn’t like I was surprised,” he said. “I wanted to win so I wasn’t going to be surprised while I’m trying to win the game.”

World Peace knows things are about to change when Mike D’Antoni takes over at the helm.
“We got a new universe coming in and he’s going to control all of our universes,” he said.

When a reporter accidentally then referred to D’Antoni as a planet, World Peace was quick to correct him.

“He’s not a planet, he’s a universe,” World Peace said. “We’re all universes.”

World Peace proceeded to explain that D’Antoni’s universe just has a little more power.

“His universe can actually put my universe on the bench if he wants to but hopefully his universe will let my universe get a little playing time, you know,” World Peace said.

But on Tuesday night, World Peace’s universe was going to go exactly where it wanted to go.

When asked if the team’s loss was going to put a damper on his birthday celebration after the game, World Peace didn’t hesitate.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

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