The Denver Nuggets beat the Detroit Pistons 89-79 Wednesday night, behind Kenneth Faried's 22 points and 17 rebounds in a hyper-efficient 28 minutes. But after the game, he mostly wanted to talk about why the Pistons lost the game. Specifically, because of Josh Smith:
Josh Smith, we let him keep shooting. He ended up with 25, but he still kept shooting, and shot them out of the game.
Faried isn't wrong. Smith led the Pistons in points by a wide margin, but he also led them in field goal attempts. Granted, his 9–22 line wasn't nearly as ugly as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's 3–19, but after scoring 15 in the first quarter Smith bricked his way to a 3–12 rest of the game.
This commentary didn't sit well with Smith, and he let The Detroit News beat writer Vincent Goodwill Jr. know about it:
I don't respond to nobody with dreadlocks who plays basketball. He's a clown, quote me on that. He knows it's coming, he knows, next time we play. In order to make those comments like that, you gotta be able to back it up and we'll see next time. I'll have some words while I'm busting his (behind). I back it up when I talk. It's gonna be a pretty good matchup.
He fears me. He's scared of me, so, of course, he'll talk about me in the paper. He won't do it to me in my face. If you have to hide behind a microphone or smartphone, so be it. I don't mind.
Guys, chill. Neither of you are close to being one of the best power forwards in the league, and neither of you are going to make the playoffs. The season is really long, and you can't be getting riled up so damn early. You're going to have good nights and you're going to have bad nights in the NBA, and you're better off not gloating about the former or getting defensive about the latter.
Photo via David Zalubowski/AP