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During Monday’s game between the Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors, rookie point guard dennis smith jr. attempted to throw down a dunk 0ver All-Star forward Draymond Green, which was denied.
This attempt had immediately sparked a strong reaction from Green, who started trash talking, stating that Smith can’t dunk on him. Following the game, Smith told Tim MacMahon of ESPN that he had no idea what why all that chatter came about.
“I don’t know what he was talking about,” Smith said. “He can’t say nothing. He fouled me. It doesn’t even make sense. I was just laughing at him. He’s rambling on about nothing. It ain’t like he blocked it. He’s just rambling, and I laughed at him.”
It was a play in which the 19-year-old did receive plenty of contact but Green set himself up on the play to deny the dunk from happening, drawing the foul instead. That said, he was going up against arguably the league’s best individual defender and the reigning Defensive Player of the Year.
Green has built up a strong reputation for his play on that end of the floor over the last few seasons and seeing him make that type of play has become typical of him. What also must be kept in mind is that Smith is in his rookie campaign, which means he will have more opportunities in the future to possibly get that done as he further develops his game.
Ultimately, this just made for great banter and an underlying storyline any time these two players face each other down the road.