It's personal now: Markieff Morris calls Paul Millsap 'a crybaby'

Paul Millsap had just answered a question about Markieff Morris, whom Millsap had outscored 29-9 in the Atlanta Hawks' Game 3 destruction of the Washington Wizards on Saturday, thusly: "It feels good to have somebody in your face like that. It's been a while. To have that, it feels good."

As if on cue, Candace Buckner of the Washington Post entered the interview room and informed Millsap that Morris had just called him "a crybaby" in the Wizards' locker room. This prompted Dennis Schroder, sitting next to Millsap, to cover his face with his hands and say: "Aw, Paul."

Did Millsap, Buckner asked, feel the series had gotten personal? "It is now," he said. "Let him take his loss and go back to the hotel."

So much for the "MMA" motif of this previously mundane series. We've now got Morris, who's an OK player, calling Millsap, who's an All-Star, a whiner. Which, you'd have to say, sounded pretty whiny itself, coming as it did on a night when Morris' team lost by 18 points and he was outscored by 20.

If this wasn't an especially intriguing series before (and it wasn't), it -- to borrow a phrase -- is now.

Further reading: The Hawks hit back, which means this is a series.