A day after watching Kobe Bryant go down with a severely sprained ankle due to Dahntay Jones’ “aggressive” defense, there was much debate about whether the play was dirty and if a foul should have been called on the play.
Lets take a look at some of the reactions from around the league. Here is one from Mark Jackson and Bruce Bowen (ironically), from Eric Pincus of Los Angeles Times:
“It’s not a clean play. It’s a dirty play,” Golden State Warriors Coach Mark Jackson said in a radio interview, according to ESPN 710.
Longtime Lakers foil Bruce Bowen actually sided with Bryant to a degree, a somewhat surprising development from the former player who was similarly accused of sticking his feet under airborne players and was called “Edward Scissorhands” by former Lakers coach Phil Jackson for his rough hands-on play. “[Jones] took away his space and in the game, you’re supposed to give the offensive player a place to land,” Bowen, the former San Antonio forward, told ESPN radio. “You saw Kobe fade away and you saw Dahntay Jones kind of continue to move in his direction. It should have been a foul call there.”
When the pioneer of dirty plays is calling you out, you know you’ve messed up. Jones responded to all the criticism – mostly in an apologetic tone – from Kevin Ding of The OC Register:
After the game I felt bad and heard the responses and things of that nature, that he sprained his ankle. After I turned around on the play, I saw that he was hurt and I thought that I did hurt him. We went in the locker room and looked at it, and when we looked at it from three different angles, it looked as if he came down on the floor but my foot was behind where he came down on. And I didn’t feel him come down on my ankle, so I never thought he came down on my foot. And usually when shooters come down on your foot they come down on the top of your foot, and that’s how they roll [the] ankle. So I felt bad. That’s why I kept looking at the play to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong. And I wasn’t trying to walk up under him. I was trying to contest the jump shot and my job as a defender is to make people uncomfortable and to challenge shots.”
Kobe, of course, had a strong reaction to the play. For those that claim that he is simply crying foul because of the injury, since when does Kobe “cry” about any injury? He shared his thoughts on why the league needs to take a better look at players when they stick their foot where it doesn’t belong, from Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“I think officials really need to protect shooters,” Bryant told reporters following the game. “You can contest shots, but you can’t walk underneath players, that’s dangerous for the shooter. “…I’m always conscious of it. When I go to contest shots I’m always very conscious about making sure I don’t walk underneath them. It’s just a very, very dangerous play. Especially if I’m fading away, there’s no rhyme or reason why I should come down anywhere near somebody’s foot.” At the end of his interview, Bryant added: “I can’t get my mind past the fact that I got to wait a year to get revenge.”
Not that it does the Lakers any good, but the league admitted that the referees missed a foul call on the play:
“With 4.9 seconds remaining in the Atlanta Hawks’ 96-92 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on March 13, the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant attempted a jump shot over the Hawks’ Dahntay Jones. After review at the league office, video replay confirmed that referees missed a foul call on Jones as he challenged Bryant’s shot and did not give him the opportunity to land cleanly back on the floor. Bryant should have been granted two free throws.”
It’s great that the league acknowledged a foul on the play and all, but if they don’t come up with harsher punishments for the dangerous play known as “stick your foot under an airborne player”, defenders will simply continue to employee the dangerous tactic. What is it going to take before they at least decide to hand out fines for the play? A broken ankle?
If you can fine a player for flopping, you can certainly fine a player for making a play that could put players out of commission for days, weeks or even months.
Onto other news from around the league: