"I'm going to put in on tape and show my son how to play basketball -- just put your head down and run into people," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "I guess that's a new brand of basketball. It's not very pretty. He just goes in there and throws his arms up in the air and throws his elbows at us. He hits you as much as you hit him."
That's George Karl talking about Manu Ginobili after Game 3. Here's Ray Allen after a game earlier this season talking about Bruce Bowen:
"I don't compare him to anyone, because he's the only one I know that doesn't play basketball," Allen told the media after the game. "He's out there playing some other sport. I don't know what you call it."
These are the two most idiotic, whiny quotes about basketball that I have ever heard. Bruce Bowen plays pure, perfect defensive basketball. I guess one-on-one perimeter defense is such a lost art that Allen got confused and couldn't even recognize the sport it came from when it was played against him.
But to malign the game of Manu Ginobili is even more idiotic. George Karl should consider himself lucky that his team has had such a great turn-around since he took over. Otherwise, his job might be at stake for disparaging the game of a player who was the first-choice of the Denver managment during free-agency last summer.
Do coaches and players really think that they, the ones with all the reason to be frustrated about being beaten by these players, are more level-headed and accurate than the referees? That the refs are, for some reason, biased towards Bowen and Ginobili? Because, if they're during some wrong, unfair, something that's "not basketball", then it would be the refs fault for not stopping it, right?
Coach Karl: give it a break. Phil Jackson only got away with such rediculous statements because he won so many championships. You are not in the same position, so at least have some dignity and take the loss like a man.