Ankle and knee sprains are the most common injuries in basketball. Mainly because of the cutting, starting/stopping, and most of all jumping without certainty of your landing zone. There is much debate about what is considered a dirty play in the NBA. There has always been an understanding that if a defender sticks his foot out underneath a jump shooter the potential of the shooter to roll their ankle by stepping on the defenders foot is extremely high. With that said, when playing solid tight defense it’s not always easy to get completely out of the way of a jump shooter in time to ensure he doesn’t land on your foot.
You can look at it both ways. You are either looked at as a Bruce Bowen, or you are playing lock down defense like Ron Artest. Perception is everything.
And when you unintentionally injure the star player on the Lakers, you are definitely going to be subject to discussion around being a ‘dirty player’. Dahntay Jones of the Atlanta Hawks is definitely feeling the heat today. Peep the video replay for yourself.
Kobe Bryant’s comments after the game to Yahoo! Sports added fuel to the fire, on whether or not the play was dirty:
Kobe Bryant on Dahntay Jones’ part in the play: “I can’t get my mind past the fact that I’ve got to wait a year to get revenge.”
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) March 14, 2013
He makes further remarks in this post-game interview:
Dirty play, or just unfortunate accident and injury for Kobe Bryant?
