Did Lamarcus Aldridge put his foot under Durant intentionally?

Pop will defend his dirty players to the end of the universe

I call that a melt play.

Looks more intentional to me than the Zaza play but who knows

I'll give LA the benefit of the doubt, I guess, but it really has to get the Spurs/Pop off of focusing on the dirty play accusations, right?

That one is actually worse than Zaza's.

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That one is actually worse than Zaza's.

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^ In this instance, Zaza puts his entire lower half inside of the landing area for Kawhi. Kawhi starts his shot inside the 3 point line and lands well behind it, but Zaza still finds a way to get into that area.



^ In this instance, Aldridge puts his foot at the 3 point line on a shot where Durant starts well behind it. Durant landed where Aldridge put his foot, and Aldridge may have done it intentionally, but it is a far cry from getting your entire lower body well inside of the area where a player is going to land.

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Except you can say with almost 100% certainty that LA did it on purpose. I think Zaza probably did that intentionally, but I also think it's plausible that a big man was trying to guard one of the best players in the league and overcompensated on the close because he was on his heels when Kawai started his shot.

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Sure, LA probably did it on purpose, but Durant was jumping into him, or at least in his direction. Zaza basically got his entire leg into Kawhi's landing area, an area that was farther away from the basket than he started. Zaza was completely careless, and that is just as big of a problem IMO, if not worse.

My point is saying LA's is worse is dumb. They're arguably on par at best.

Zaza timed his up so perfectly that it was not only more effective of a dirty play but it hid the blantant intention.

He probably did do it intentionally. Eye for an eye mentality is pretty common in situations like this.

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saying LA's is worse is dumb.

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I think worse from a perspective of how clear the intent was, not worse from an effect on the shooter or how far under the shooter each got.