News / Sports
Danny Granger Calls Joakim Noah "Cowardly"
Pacers Member Calls out Bulls Player After Loss
The Pacers were eliminated from the Playoffs on Tuesday after losing to the Bulls 116-89 in Game 5 of their series. During the game, Pacers forward Josh McRoberts was ejected from the game after being involved in a scuffle with Noah.
"He pulled a cowardly move," said Granger. "He cheap-shotted a couple of my teammates, and one gets thrown out ...
"The refs never catch what he did ... it's cowardly. And I'm going to say something about it. I wanted to say something about it all the way to the game was over. I just don't think the game should be played that way. You can play hard and fight and battle, but when you start cheap-shotting people it gets out of hand."
According to a report from ESPN.com, Granger tried to talk to Noah after the game, but Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau intervened.
"It's just heat of the battle stuff," said Thibodeau.
Noah had nothing but kind words for the Pacers team, however.
"I played dirty? OK. I'm just trying to win basketball games, man," said Noah. "It's the name of the game.
"I'm just out there trying to do what I gotta do. Like I said, I give a lot of credit to their team. They play hard as hell. They were competitive. I don't have anything bad to say about them. Everybody saw what happened out there. Now you want to call me a dirty player? I don't think I've ever been a dirty player. It is what it is. It's OK."
Even McRoberts didn't seem to care about his in-game confrontation with Noah as much as Granger does.
"I'm not mad about it," said McRoberts. "He got a good hit on me. They caught me trying to hit him back.
"It's part of the game. I'm not going to say it's dirty. That's Game 5 of a playoff series. You can't say it's dirty, it's part of basketball."
Bulls guard Kyle Korver echoed the same kind of sentiments.
"Come on now. All this stuff we've talked about with the Pacers the last few days and how they're [giving] hard fouls," Korver said. "Come on. It's the playoffs, right?
"It's the playoffs. That's what it is. There's going to be hard fouls. There's going to be stuff being said. I think they were mad they were down a little bit, and Jo played with a lot of energy. Jo played great. Jo's one of those guys, when you're not on his team he pisses you off. That's just the way it is. He's like Jeff Foster. When he's on your team, you love him. When he's on the other team, you hate him. And that's one of the special things about Jo."
(Sources: ESPN.com)
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