‘Jeopardy!’ champion uses final wagers to troll Golden State Warriors over NBA Finals collapse

Loren Lee Chen knew exactly what he was doing.

On the episode of “Jeopardy!” that aired Tuesday night but was taped on an earlier date, the first-time contestant wagered $301 during the Final Jeopardy portion of the show. That number was a bit unconventional and might have raised a few eyebrows.

A tweet by Chen mentioned the wager but appeared to shed little light on the thinking behind the amount.

As returning champion on the following night’s episode, he made an even more unusual final wager — $739.

“Interesting,” host Alex Trebek said. “I don’t know what it really means.”

Again, Chen took to Twitter to give more hints about the puzzling numbers.

As you might have figured out by now, Chen was trolling the Golden State Warriors, who in June lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals after taking a 3-1 series lead and setting a league record with a 73-9 record in the regular season.

"Since the 2016 NBA Finals, there has been a meme on 'Basketball Twitter' to constantly interject with: 'Don't let this distract you from the fact that the Warriors went 73-9 and blew a 3-1 lead in the finals,” Chen told ESPN. “'Basketball Twitter' is obviously a big part of my life, so I wanted to give them a little shout-out, though now it might have been a little stale.”

Chen is a West Newton, Mass., resident who helps run a podcast called “On the NBA Beat.” He won $19,899 on Tuesday’s episode and $16,139 on Wednesday’s show. Chances are, NBA fans will tune in Thursday to see what he comes up with if his winning ways continue.

"My $301 bet on Tuesday didn't get noticed by too many people," Chen added. "But $739 on Wednesday definitely did, and it's been really great seeing the support from everyone on [Twitter] during this run."

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii