Kevin Durant called Chris Bosh a “fake tough guy” after a fiery 2011 Thunder-Heat game: “He’s one of them” originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Kevin Durant is known for sparring mostly off the court and trading barbs on social media, preferably on X (formerly Twitter). On the hardwood, though, the 36-year-old usually lets his scoring do the talking.
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But in late January 2011, KD showed a different side.
During a heated game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat, he got into a verbal altercation with opposing forward Chris Bosh — and it didn’t end when the buzzer sounded. In fact, when reporters later asked about the incident, Durant called out Bosh as one of the league’s “fake tough guys.”
Real toughness or just show?
In the NBA, being a tough guy isn’t about trash talk, a smug glare, or puffing your chest — it’s about showing up, standing tall, and striking real fear into your opponent, night after night.
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However, there’s a fine line between true toughness and just playing the part. For Durant, Bosh landed squarely in the latter category.
“There’s a lot of fake tough guys in this league and he’s one of them,” said the then-OKC superstar at the time, per ESPN.
Strong words — which naturally raise the question: what actually went down between the two future Hall of Famers?
As is often the case, it started out harmless enough. OKC’s James Harden drove to the rim in the first quarter and finished a layup, while Bosh stepped in late and got whistled for a foul.
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As Harden walked it off, Durant approached — initially to talk with his teammate.
But instead of The Beard, KD quickly found himself in a heated exchange with CB4. Let’s just say the words weren’t exactly friendly. Tempers flared, and after a brief back-and-forth, the refs had seen enough. Both players were hit with technical fouls — just two of several handed out in that chippy matchup.
Heated clash
After the game between two Western Conference heavyweights — a 108–103 win for the Heat — The Slim Reaper revisited the moment.
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“I was talking to my teammate and he (Bosh) decided he wanted to put his 2 cents into it,” he remarked. “I’m a quiet guy, a laid-back guy, but I’m not going to let nobody talk trash to me.”
Bosh, also often the case, remembered things a little differently.
“I think he was telling Harden to dunk on me, or dunk the next one,” he said, before offering a cleaned-up version of the exchange. “I expressed that, ‘No, he’s not going to dunk that.’ And he expressed, ‘Yes, he is.’ It just kind of went back and forth.”
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Off the floor? Maybe a “cool dude,” as the 2008 Rookie of the Year put it. But on it? Not so much. To KD, Miami’s lefty forward was putting on a persona.
“Like I said, he’s not one of those guys that I look at and say, ‘Oh, he has a rap for talking back to guys or always getting into it,'” Durant said. “No, he’s a nice guy.”
Awkwardly enough, the two met again a few weeks later at the NBA All-Star Game. But instead of picking up where they left off, they handled it like grown-ups. As Bosh told the media in June 2012, they had “squashed” their beef during that weekend in Los Angeles.
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This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 26, 2025, where it first appeared.