The Spurs absolutely embarrassed the Mavericks on national television Friday, winning 116-90 in Dallas. The final score was bad enough, but even that doesn’t truly express just how uninspired Dallas looked, as they came out completely flat and had only 26 points at halftime.
Considering the lack of energy that most of his team displayed, one might forgive Rick Carlisle if he let rookie Salah Mejri off the hook for getting a little too fired up after scoring in the second quarter. After getting a dunk, Mejri decided to use it as an opportunity to talk some trash to one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, Gregg Popovich.
https://twitter.com/MegaMaz/status/695809677255311360
It’s bad enough to do that at any point when you’ve only played in 13 NBA games, but to make matters worse, the Mavs were also trailing by 21 at the time.
Unsurprisingly, Popovich not only didn’t jaw back at the Tunisian rookie, but thought the whole thing was hilarious, simply saying with a smile: “What did I do?” Even Tim Duncan, who was sitting the game out, thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
For this part, Mejri acknowledged after the game that he was excited about the dunk but denied he was talking at Popovich, telling reporters:
“He was in my vision, but I did not yell at him. He is one of the greatest coaches in the league, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to yell at him. I never did that in my life.”
Maybe as a rule of thumb how about just not saying anything to anyone when you’re getting destroyed on your home court, just to avoid confusion.
(Via @MegaMaz)