that was not a dirty play.

I don’t think this was a dirty play, and this is why:
first of all, I don’t think its legitimate to reference past actions of Horry’s or make some nebulous psycholgical projections. What I think is this:
Manu had the ball and looked to be driving baseline.
West was collapsing on the ball.
Horry was setting the pick far before West jumped into the air to try to delfect the pass.
It is completely legitimate to set a screen to keep West from a) getting to the ball or b) protect Manu from going baseline, which its completely reasonable to think he would do.
Everything up until that point seems pretty clear to me, and its what I’m going on.
After that the Horry leans into him and puts his forearms into his lower back and his head into the center of his back. A lot of people are claiming that putting your forearms into a guys back is “dirty” but in actuality it happens almost every time down the floor for a post player. Its not that I don’t think Horry has it in him. I just think its giving him too much credit for being diabolical or conspiratorial.
In the way last year, obviously he meant to foul nash very hard, but people act like he intended to draw guys of the bench. I just think it would be shocking if he were that calculated. But in this instance everything he did seems completely legitimate in terms of the development of the play.

i think every professional sports team in the history of sports has had an ugly moment like the “horry” chants. it happens in basketball, it happens in football, it happens in baseball when a guy gets beat up. it’s practically routine in international soccer.

any big group of people is going to be full of assholes and idiots. when beer is around, it’s going to be worse. and, maybe, just maybe, sports tend to bring out more assholes and idiots than other things.

it was disgusting. there is no excuse.

but to say horry went out to hurt somebody, or - even more ridiculous - that the spurs planned to hurt west, is just fucking nonsense.

first of all, if the spurs wanted to hurt west, why wait until the end of a possible elimination game? seems like if they wanted to put west down, they would do it toward the beginning of the game. when west went down, the spurs were up by 21 and the game was over.

second, i’d like to see just one basketball game where a team doesn’t set a pick exactly like that. horry did not move into west. west came to him. he leaned forward because he’s a fucking crusty mummy and didn’t want to break his hip falling down.

and it’s not like he headbutt west in the back. jesus chirst.

did horry ever intend to set a “soft” pick on west? probably not. then again, why would he? why would any basketball player try to set a “soft” pick, a move that requires the player to hold their ground?

the truth is, west was playing recklessly, stumbling backward out of position, and no one on the hornets communicated that horry was planted right behind him.

all that said, i hope west is absolutely 100% on monday. i don’t want another year of people making excuses.