Losing badly in the fourth quarter of their game against the Los Angeles Clippers last night, Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone attempted to claw back in the game using the well-known Hack-A-DeAndre strategy. He put DeAndre Jordan at the line five times on purpose in the quarter, and Jordan made only four of his 10 attempts. That’s less than a point per possession, which means it’s decently sound logic (it wasn’t enough to win, but still). But Blake Griffin didn’t care about logic. He must have just hated waiting around for all those free throws, because he had some very not-nice things to say to Malone:
Better lip-readers than I could confirm this, but it looks like he said, “F*ck you, f*cking b*tch.” And when the referees heard that, they called Griffin for a well-deserved technical foul. It also caused Malone to take a few steps towards the Clippers bench before some of his players held him back. Malone said he owes the Clippers an apology. For his part, Griffin said after the game, “It will be taken care of.” Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times seems to think he was referring to discipline from the NBA to Malone, and we can only hope that’s true.
In related news, the Clippers seem to make new enemies everywhere they go. The next time they face the Nuggets will be on February 24.
(Via Los Angeles Times)
