Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson accused the Denver Nuggets of sending “hit men” at his star guard Steph Curry after his team lost 107-100 on Tuesday.
“They were the more physical team, the aggressor,” Jackson began his post-game news conference by saying. “They hurt us in the first half scoring the basketball in the paint, made us pay for our turnovers. They tried to send hit men on Steph Curry.”
He was asked to further explain on the “hit men” comment.
“There were some dirty play early. It’s playoff basketball, that’s all right,” Jackson responded. “We own it. But make no mistake about it, we went up 3-1 playing hard, physical, clean basketball — not trying to hurt anybody.”
Jackson pointed his venom at Nuggets forward Kenneth Faried in particular.
“He set some great screens and some great illegal ones, too,” Jackson said. “He did his job. Hey, I played with guys like that. They get paid to do that. Dale Davis, Anthony Davis, Charles Oakley. You get paid to do it. So give them credit,”; Jackson said. "As an opposing coach, I see it, and I’m trying to protect my guys.”
Jackson complained about one screen in particular on Curry being “a shot at his ankle, clearly. That can’t be debated.” He added, “I got inside information that some people don’t like that brand of basketball and they clearly didn’t co-sign it. So they wanted to let me know they have no parts in what was taking place. Let the best team win. And let everybody with the exception of going down with a freak injury, let everybody leave out of here healthy. That’s not good basketball.”
TNT highlighted the play that Jackson was referring to after the game:
Faried countered by saying that it was just part of the game.
“We were just playing physical,” Faried said. “They say we were playing dirty, but we were just playing physical. We were hitting them like they were hitting us.”
In Faried’s defence, the following shove on him by Warriors centre Andrew Bogut was not exactly a textbook play either.
When told of Jackson’s comments after the game, Nuggets coach George Karl fired back by asking, “Draymond Green, did he play football or basketball at Michigan State?”
