Four-time NBA All-Star Paul Millsap recently announced his retirement from basketball. One of the game’s elite power forwards during his prime, Millsap made four-straight All-Star teams from 2014 to 2017.

Each of Millsap’s four All-Star seasons came with the Atlanta Hawks, but it was a game with the Utah Jazz that he says helped fuel that next step in his career. Speaking with Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Millsap recalled a game against Blake Griffin and the LA Clippers that pushed him to tears.

“He beat us,” Millsap said of Griffin, recalling a December 28, 2012 battle with the six-time All-Star. “And, he definitely outcompeted me that game. And I went to my car after that, and I broke out, and I just cried, and I just like, ‘Dang, I think I missed my chances of being an All-Star.’”

Millsap told Williams that moment pushed him to work harder, and helped fuel what ended up being four-straight All-Star selections. That 2012 season was just Griffin’s second in the NBA, but he was already one of the game’s best power forwards. Earning an All-NBA second team selection that year, Griffin made his second of what would be five-straight All-Star teams in Los Angeles.

Also now retired, Griffin spent eight seasons with the Clippers where he was selected first overall in the 2009 NBA draft.

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