A Memphis Grizzlies player has suggested he doesn’t respect LeBron James after clashing with the all-time leading NBA points scorer during the playoffs.
Dillon Brooks and James exchanged words on court as the Grizzlies squared their series with the Los Angeles Lakers, securing a 103-93 win in the second game of the Western Conference first round playoffs.
Brooks, regarded as one of the NBA’s best defenders and typically outspoken on court, had kept James reasonably quiet but had just picked up his fourth foul in the third quarter when he and the 38-year-old squared up to one another.
While James continues to be one of the league’s best players deep into his thirties, Brooks stressed afterwards that he felt the small forward is a faded force.
“I don’t care - he’s old. You know what I mean?” Brooks said of his clash with James. “I was waiting for that. I was expecting him to do that Game 4, Game 5. He wanted to say something when I got my fourth foul.
“He should have been saying that earlier on. But I poke bears. I don’t respect no one until they come and give me 40.
“I said, ‘Oh, finally you want to talk’. “Then we started to get into a conversation. I just let him know that, ‘You can’t take me one-on-one. You haven’t.’ You go look at the film; he doesn’t really take me one-on-one until that moment. Then when he got subbed out, he was tired. So I did my job.”
The Lakers only narrowly squeezed in to the Western Conference playoffs as the seventh seeds.
Four-time NBA Most Valuable Player James continues to lead the way for the Los Angeles franchise, averaging nearly 29 points a game.
He is, as Brooks emphasised, yet to score more than 34 points against a team containing the tenacious Grizzlies wing defender, and the 27-year-old lamented that he was not able to lock horns with James when in his prime.
“He’s not at the same level that he was when he was on Cleveland winning championships, [in] Miami,” Brooks said.
“I wish I got to see that. It would have been a harder task, but I’m playing with what I’ve got. Just wear and tear on him throughout a seven-game series and see if he can take it. See if he wants to play the one-on-one battle or if he wants to be out on the sidelines shooting the basketball.”
The series continues in Los Angeles on Saturday evening.
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