RealGM

“Uno,” forward Kent Bazemore said, “is always a thrill.”

It all started innocently enough when Jeff Teague, the team’s starting point guard, brought a deck of Uno cards on a trip last season. He gradually recruited several teammates — Bazemore, center Al Horford and guards Kyle Korver and Dennis Schroder — to start participating in a regular game.

The conventional objective — first player to get rid of all his cards wins — was enough to keep them interested, but they soon wanted to spice things up. So Bazemore and Schroder hatched the idea of adding some of the more notorious cards from at least two other decks — all the Draw 2s, Wild Draw 4s, Reverses and Skips. The players referred to the extra cards as “heat.” The game was born anew.

The games almost always continue from takeoff to landing, and each player is expected to be a full participant, with no excused absences. Guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who was a part of the group earlier this season, learned that lesson. After a couple of weeks spent honing his Uno expertise, teammates said, he wanted to take a break, if only for one flight.

“He said he was tired and wanted to rest,” Schroder said. “So we had to kick him out.”

Patterson owns the current championship belt — a figurative one for now, although Bazemore has been tasked with ordering an actual belt online. It will be very glamorous, Bazemore said, befitting the high stakes of their game-away-from-the-game.

“I can’t wait,” Patterson said. “I’m going to be walking around with it everywhere I go.”