After a rough 1-2 start that saw stars Steph Curry and Kevin Durant ejected for showing their frustration in the latest loss Friday, the Golden State Warriors were on the other side of a blowout Monday, and an action in that blowout led to an opposing coach getting annoyed. With Golden State up 119-94 on the Dallas Mavericks and less than three minutes left in the game, Warriors’ rookie forward Jordan Bell blocked a shot, received a tipped pass from JaVale McGee, and raced in for a breakaway dunk, passing the ball to himself off the backboard before throwing it down. And as you can see in the video, teammates Curry and Durant loved it:
Let’s take a look at those faces. Here’s Curry:
And Durant:
We’ve seen plenty of self alley-oops in the NBA before, including the one LeBron James pulled off in June’s Finals against the Warriors. But this one, and probably the situation it came in, appeared to quite annoy Dallas coach Rick Carlisle, who reportedly blew off Golden State coach Steve Kerr’s apology afterwards:
Steve Kerr tried to apologize to Rick Carlisle postgame about the Jordan Bell dunk, Carlisle zipped right past, displeased.
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) October 24, 2017
So Carlisle clearly wasn’t a fan of this move. Kerr told reporters after the game Bell “didn’t even realize he offended anybody,” though:
Steve Kerr not thrilled with Jordan Bell's dunk pic.twitter.com/EgC10y5N4Y
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) October 24, 2017
It sounds like Kerr wasn’t the biggest fan of this move either, so we might not see it again. Curry and Durant certainly loved it, though.
[SI]
