Last Friday, the Bulls defeated the hapless Milwaukee Bucks despite missing three of our key players (Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Tyrus Thomas) and another, Derrick Rose only played 5 minutes.
In the first half there was an altercation where Richard Jefferson began pushing on Andres Nocioni after Nocioni fouled him. Kirk Hinrich then jumped in and pushed Jefferson in the back.
After the game, Daily Herald writer Mike McGraw caught up with Richard Jefferson to inquire about the altercation, and Jefferson actually opened up and talked about the incident.
Richard Jefferson had the audacity to accuse Andres Nocioni of trying to hurt him. Jefferson said, “I’ve never hurt anybody, never been accused of being dirty. Derrick Rose, I went up after the ball, he got fouled. I’m not trying to hurt the young fellow. I’d never disrespect anybody. But Nocioni, can you say the same thing about him?”
What is more amazing is Jefferson’s skewed view of the events that took place.
“I went up after the ball on Rose. I didn’t try to knock him down. I didn’t try to go after the body. I went up and tried to block it, he fell down. If they want to take that like that’s something wrong… I played in almost 80 playoff games in my life. That’s a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball. It ain’t a hack, it ain’t a throw, it ain’t a grab, a wrap-up. I went after the ball. Watch the tape and see if I went after the block.”
Mr. Jefferson, you’re saying that you went after the ball while Nocioni was trying to hack at you and hurt you? Is this why you hit Derrick Rose in the back and grazed his head while never touching the ball? Is this also why Andres Nocioni knocked the ball out of your hands on his foul? Which one of you was actually going after the ball?
And then there is Tom Ziller who writes for AOL Fanhouse. Ziller wrote, “Andres Nocioni hammered Jefferson”. Ziller goes on to write, “You see, that’s how obvious it is that Nocioni is dirty: Jefferson feels it is insulting to even ask him if Nocioni is dirty.”
Is it really that obvious to you Mr. Ziller that Andres Nocioni is a dirty player? Does Nocioni emanate an aura of dirtiness? Perhaps Mr. Ziller could gain more clarity on the situation if he actually watched the game. Ziller admits in his article that he didn’t even watch the Bulls vs. Bucks game on Friday night. Ziller didn’t even bother to go look at a video of the altercation before writing this article. Was it too difficult to watch Sportscenter or go on ESPN.com and watch the game highlights so you could actually know what you were talking about?
Ziller then goes on to say that Nocioni is a player who has built a good portion of his game on hitting players harder than they’d like to be hit while Jefferson is a high-flying skilled player.
Ziller is correct in saying that Nocioni hits players harder than they would like to be hit, but in no way has Nocioni built his game on this. Nocioni only hits players harder than they would like to be hit because the NBA is filled with soft, whiney players like Richard Jefferson who cannot take what Jefferson himself calls “a good foul and that’s a good attempt at the ball.”
Jefferson said, “It’s like if Bruce Bowen gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? If Ron Artest gets into a scuffle, are you surprised? OK, that pretty much sums it all up, then.”
Should we not be surprised by you, a Milwaukee Buck, pulling a punk move to injure a player? It was the Bucks who gave Awvee Storey, who punched his own teammate Martynas Andriuskevicius in the back of the head leaving Andriuskevicius with a fractured skull. It was a Milwaukee Buck, Royal Ivey, who pathetically punched Aaron Gray in the family jewels in retaliation to Gray knocking Ivey out with a solid screen.
Now I think it is insane to think for a second that Richard Jefferson was trying to hurt Derrick Rose. But Jefferson is making very serious claims that Nocioni goes out on the court trying to hurt people.
Does Jefferson want to take the Bulls vs. Bucks rivalry down the same road as the Bulls vs. Heat rivalry from a few years ago? We can go down that route, but be warned Mr. Jefferson, you and your team lack both the talent and toughness to match up with the Bulls in this rivalry.
