re: OKC announcer calls out Jokic for flopping after he gets hit in the face by a Dort elbow

I can’t figure out how that guy’s arm flails like it did unless intentional.

You never defined

Y’all OKC fans are wild. Homerism is off the charts in a cultish way

His pettiness on here is insane. I can be a bad homer, but I will at least TRY to call it what it is. This guy is acting like some sleazy attorney.

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Even teams known for physical defense like the Bad Boy Pistons didn't try to go for an opponent's legs.

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First team I can ever remember hip checking opponents and intentionally moving in to their landing space.

They went for opponents’ legs like crazy:

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Even teams known for physical defense like the Bad Boy Pistons didn't try to go for an opponent's legs.

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When Dirk was shooting his way to 31,560 points, I saw players from a couple of teams try to knock him out of games, and playoff series. If you followed his career, you'll know he had a history of high ankle sprains. I've never had one to know how it hurt, but they can be crippling, and most people take a long time to come back from one. . A few times in his career he missed four or five games with one of them. He'd hurt it and be told he might miss a couple of weeks, but he always came back sooner than the doctor's estimate.

I saw Bruce Bowen intentionally step where they thought Dirk would land trying to get him to land awkwardly. When this one happened they didn't call a foul on Bowen, but the next time he did it in a later game that season they did call it a foul. Bowen was a great defender, but there's no way he wasn't trying to hurt Dirk to stay ahead in the standings or to end a series.

Bowen wasn't the only guy. Karl Malone did it once too, really early on in Dirk's career. He and Stockton were good but they'd do what the needed to do to win. It's one of those things that you see once and think it could have happened by accident. But when you see people intentionally stepping under where a jump shooter is going to land, knowing his propensity for getting that injury. They just get mad at a guy that steps away from them to shoot. They had to almost slip down to get under him, but they managed it. They were used to being able to get between a 7 footer and the basket. When he stepped back to shoot they knew they were beat.

I saw Mavs players pull similar stunts during playoff run. The one series against San Antonio Juwan Howard had two flagrant fouls in two of the 1st three games. Both were while he was defending guys driving to the basket. Derek Anderson's shoulder was separated in the 1st game. When he knocked Malik Rose down instead of getting dunked on, I thought Pop was going to have a heart attack. Playoff pressure can drive guys into doing things they'd never do in a regular season game. Some guys may have had dirty plays throughout their careers in some situations, and may just resort to it when they feel the extra pressure. Others may be in that situation for the 1st time and just try to do more than is physically possible. In their mind it wasn't intentional, but it wasn't possible for them to do their job without hurting someone.

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The posters in this thread are all young.

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