Let’s remember Baron Davis’ very rude dunk on Andrei Kirilenko from the 2007 NBA Playoffs

Behold, 11 years ago, Laura Dern’s boyfriend — known then in NBA circles as Baron Davis — did a good basketball thing. Namely, he gave an underdog Golden State Warriors team (that seems ... weird to type now) a fleeting moment of hope in their 4-1 Western Conference semifinals loss to the Utah Jazz by dunking all over Andrei Kirilenko in the rudest way possible.

Back in 2007, the Warriors were a mediocre team scrapping for a playoff berth. Then they shocked the world by beating the Mavericks, marking the first time an eight-seed had ever toppled a top-seeded goliath in a best-of-seven series. That put the NBA’s focus directly on their shoulders as they took on the Jazz, but Utah was able to hold court for the first two games of the series, sending Davis and his crew back to the Bay Area in an 0-2 hole.

That’s when B-Diddy took a handoff from Andris Biedrins, turned the corner on Deron Williams — wearing powder blue and playing awful defense in a preview of his 2016 campaign with Dallas — and soared into the air only to be met by AK-47 himself. Kirilenko was a shot-blocking defensive machine near his peak back in ‘07, but Davis, six inches shorter, put him on a poster anyway. The two hung in the air, briefly, as though the duel would end in an impasse. Then the Warriors guard brought the hammer down, drawing the and-1 foul and giving Golden State a 121-99 lead.

Then came the preening. Davis’s visceral reaction to purchasing real estate in Kirilenko’s nightmares was to, uh, show him his belly? Then he walked out of frame with his hands up as though he was a police negotiator entering a standoff. It was weird and beautiful and rightly stands as one of the defining moments of Davis’s career. All of it.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, that was as good as it got. Davis missed his ensuing free throw, and while Golden State went on to win Game 3, it would lose its next two to close the books on the 2006-07 season. He’d play one more season with the Warriors, leading them back to 48 wins but missing the playoffs in a borderline unfair Western Conference. Then he was gone, signed by the Clippers as a free agent the next summer. He’d win just one more playoff game in his career.

But for one postseason in Oakland, Davis was a glorious peacock with the athletic gifts to bend time and space to his will. That’s worth remembering.