Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Danny Granger and Leandro Barbosa are not buddies

Indiana Pacers v Atlanta Hawks

ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 11: Danny Granger #33 of the Indiana Pacers reacts after not drawing a foul from the Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena on December 11, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Danny Granger

Kevin C. Cox

This is a nice little meaningless story.

So the last time the Raptors and Pacers met up, the Pacers took a last second desperation heave in a blowout they were up in. In particular, Darren Collison took a three-pointer that may or may not have been at the end of the 24-second clock. The Raptors naturally didn’t like this much, because that’s what basketball players do when you run the score up on them.

Then Friday night, with the Raptors running away from the reeling Pacers, Leandro Barbosa went for a layup with the clock running out. Outside the NBA put both incidents together. It’s like a mini-movie. I like to pretend Tyler Hansbrough is Burt Reynolds.

The Score spoke to Danny Granger post-game, and the words were not the kind you share with your mother.

“If I was on him, I would have took his head off and I would have been suspended for a game for a flagrant foul. Stuff like that will set in the back of your head the next time we play Toronto. We don’t play them again but I was on him, I would have taken his neck off.”

via Raptors/Pacers: Buzzer Beef | Blog Archive | RaptorBlog | Blogs | TheScore.com.

You know, Danny Granger being known as the kind of brutal, Bad-Boys-esque enforcer that he is.

Barbosa denied doing anything wrong, falling back on the classic “people know what kind of player I am” reasoning. In the end, players should dribble the clock out, not out of respect, not out of propriety, but you know why? Because then no one gets their underwear in a bunch and we don’t have players with no history of physical defense talking about taking the heads off of speedy aging Brazilian veterans.