NBA

Paul Pierce, Meet Jay Pharoah

So SNL cast member Jay Pharoah had some unkind words for Paul Pierce on ESPN’s First Take, calling him an “actress” and a “diva” — although he still acknowledged that Pierce was “a good player” and his rant seemed pretty tongue-in-cheek overall. Pierce was apparently not amused, though, and after helping beat the Heat last night with a late three, responded on Twitter thusly:

Who is jay pharaoh

— Paul Pierce (@paulpierce34) June 6, 2012

Well, I can help with that! Pharoah has been on SNL for two seasons, but Pierce’s confusion can be forgiven, since he’s spent most of his limited screen time doing impersonations of famous people. Here’s a brief Jay Pharaoh primer.

The show has gotten quite a bit of mileage out of Pharoah’s scary-good Jay-Z impression, as seen here:

And here:

…And those are sort of the highlights. Pharoah has been pretty underused in his tenure on the show, save for one attempt at a recurring sketch, “The Jay Pharoah Show,” which was used once in Season 37 and hasn’t shown up again since.

Yikes. At least Paul Pierce can take comfort in the knowledge that while he’s a starter for the Celtics, Pharoah is a utility player at best on SNL. Or he could re-watch the clip, see that Pharaoh was clearly not taking his appearance on First Take very seriously, and they could team up to make fun of Charles Barkley in a reprisal of SNL’s “Inside The NBA” sketch, á la Shaquille O’Neal. Your move, Pierce.