By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Kendrick Perkins was quite vocal in criticizing the Trail Blazers coach Terry Scotts and the two big men in Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter for their defense.
“Mike Malone flat out coached Terry Stotts!!! Nurkic and Kanter are the worse defensive bigs in the NBA! Btw shoutout to Austin Rivers tonight for proving all the haters wrong…I just remember them saying he was in the NBA because of his Pops. Carry the hell on,” Perkins wrote via Twitter.
However, Nurkic, whose defensive rating was among the best this season, didn’t accept those words and stepped on the court in Game 4 to prove them wrong.
The Blazers big did a great job defensively on Nikola Jokic who stayed at 16 points and one assist, his worst display so far in the series. Nurkic logged 17 points, six rebounds, two blocks, one steal, and one assist.
And the Bosnian best had some words for Perkins.
“I don’t know if I can talk about defense, some guy, clown out there saying I’m one of the worst in the league. The guy named, I guess he’s an analyst, ESPN guy Perkins, the big fella Perkins, Kendrick Perkins. I guess in this league today, he’d be a mascot, I don’t know why he claimed that and I like him as a person too. To say that stuff that was weak, I know he got to get with tweets, but I’m not here for that. Coming from the guy who couldn’t play in this league now,” Nurk said.
Perkins had another move in the back-and-forth with Nurkic and shared a video from Kobe Bryant who praised him for his defensive prowess.