The Utah Jazz got a real scare in the third quarter of their eventual loss to the visiting Heat on Friday night.
In the scramble for a loose ball, Dion Waiters crashed into the knee of Rudy Gobert and took down the Jazz big man. It looked horrible (wait for the second angle of the video below).
NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Rudy Gobert taken off the court as Dion Waiters runs into Rudy Gobert's knee. pic.twitter.com/kxFRyQkxmj
— Dave Noriega (@davenoriega) November 11, 2017
Credit all the strength and flexibility work Gobert has done on the lower half of his body, and credit a little luck, it wasn’t serious, and Gobert returned to the game. He is listed as questionable for Saturday’s back-to-back game against the Nets.
Afterwards, Gobert was not happy with the play, speaking to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel:“I think it was a dirty play, but no matter what the most important thing is to keep getting better.”
“He just dove right into my knee,” Gobert claimed afterward, according to the Deseret News. “Kind of like the same thing that happened before on my MCL, so my knee just went inside and kind of popped inside and back out.”
“I was feeling a little sore,” he said. “I know that my ligaments were fine, so it was just pain.”
We will see if the league looks at this and sees a fine or a retroactive technical foul, but I don’t think this was intentional. Reckless, okay. Waiters was lunging for the ball, lost control, and went into Gobert — you can argue that Waiters has to control his body and suffer the consequences, but dirty implies intent and I don’t see that.
The good news is this ended up not being a severe injury to Gobert.
