Rudy Gobert is defining himself as a force on the defensive end of the floor for the Utah Jazz this season. In doing so, he’s starting to end up on the wrong end of highlight clips.
It started exactly a week ago when he went up to block DeMar DeRozan’s dunk attempt. That didn’t go so well, although he did a marvelous job at burning a Toronto Raptors fan on twitter after that game.
On Wednesday against the Los Angeles Clippers, Gobert ended up on Chris Paul at the top of the arc after a switch on a screen (you can already guess where this is headed). Nothing really good happens for the center after that, as you can see below:
To the naked eye, it looks like Paul had the hesitation move of the year. Gobert, however, knows the truth behind what happened and he let one photo do all the talking for him after an impressive 102-91 victory over the Clippers on the road:
Great win tonight! #ontothenextone https://t.co/JMtxBvDL7j
— Rudy Gobert (@rudygobert27) November 26, 2015
Jim Park is a blogger and Tweet of the Night author of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.
If you get nailed hard in the jewels, then you’re going down. Period. What you’re definitely not doing is flying backwards 150 yards like you’re Vlade Divac caught in a 70-miles-per-hour wind gust.
Look at the photo again. Unless he’s actually 40 years older than he claims and consequently his nuts have dropped and hang so low they’re nearly dragging on the floor, then Paul made no contact with his package.
Gobert simply flopped. So to speak.
Okay first of all don’t claim to know what happened. looks like he may have indeed touched that region with his forearm if nothing else. and while I agree that’s not how you react to a nut-punch, cp3 did push off hard with his arm, and with gobert being off-balance + he tried to “sell” the offensive foul call (which could have been called), you end up getting a flopping, flying gobert. this play was over-hyped for that reason and while I think cp3 is a shrewd, perhaps slightly dirty player regardless im amazed with some of the stuff he gets away with on the floor. still like him as a player, but the W is all I want. go jazz 😉