Minnesota Timberwolves veteran Patrick Beverley recently came out with some fiery criticism about Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert. In particular, Beverley called out the claims that Gobert is currently the best defender in the league. Clearly, Pat Bev does not agree with this notion.
Beverley questioned how we can say that Gobert is the best defender in the NBA today when he doesn't even guard the best offensive player on opposing teams. In a recent interview with Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report, the Jazz star fired back at Beverley's slander:
“You know me, I never complain for myself,” Gobert said (h/t Joey Linn of the SunHerald). “I think when you play the right way, your game always speaks for itself. And once again, we have a lot of ways of measuring someone's impact on the court nowadays, which I think is great. What I want people to understand about what I do on the court, is that I'm not just guarding one player. When I'm out there, my mindset is to guard the whole team.”
While Beverley does have a bit of a valid argument, Gobert's response pretty much cancels out the former's bold claim. While Beverley is focused on defending just a single player on the opposing team, which is by no means an easy task, the Jazz big man has his eyes on the bigger picture. Gobert may not be man-marking the best offensive player on the opposing team every single night, but there's no denying that he is one of, if not the most impactful player for his team on the defensive end. His three Defensive Player of the Year titles are clear testaments to this fact.
Gobert then went on to belabor his point about the importance of team effort on defense. Gobert clearly has a different mindset as opposed to Beverley, and for his part, it has definitely worked wonders for the Jazz center.
“I'm going out there thinking I got to guard this whole team… because at the end of the day, it's a team sport,” Gobert continued. “You don't do anything on your own, so my goal is to communicate with my teammates and make sure that I have the most impact that I can on my team, and ultimately on the other team… My guy might score 30, I don't want that because I have pride obviously, but if my guy scores 30 and the other team scores 80 points, it's a big difference in the league.”
It is worth noting that Beverley himself has been vocal about his own bid for the Defensive Player of the Year title. In his mind, he's been long overlooked as the best defender in the NBA. Pat Bev knows that Gobert is one of the favorites for this year's DPOY crown yet again, so it comes as no surprise that the feisty guard has set his sights on Gobert.
However, Gobert has never been the combative type when it comes to talking smack. As a matter of fact, in this same interview with Taylor Rooks, the Jazz star also took a high-road approach when responding to the criticism from Warriors star Draymond Green. Despite his rather timid nature, however, this doesn't mean that Gobert's clap backs aren't as effective. Patrick Beverley, for instance, just got schooled pretty hard here.
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