The Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs are playing the only Game 7 of the first round of the NBA Playoffs on Saturday night, and one of the Spurs’ players has come under scrutiny for the physical nature of his screens.
Jakob Poeltl, the hulking seven-foot center from Austria, has leveled Nuggets point guard Jamal Murray twice in the series with some bone-crushing screens, and there were calls from the Denver media that Poeltl was a dirty player.
Poeltl’s teammate, DeMar DeRozan, came to the defense of the backup big man:
DeMar DeRozan: “Jakob is not a dirty player. Anybody who thinks that has a dirty mind.”
— Mike Singer (@msinger) April 27, 2019
Clearly, Derozan is a Prince fan, but beyond that, Poeltl himself chimed in by claiming, “I am setting legal screens,” in an article on My San Antonio.
No matter what happens in Saturday’s Game 7, Poeltl will be under a lot of scrutiny for the machinations of his screen-setting form.
This is a do-or-die game for both teams, as the Spurs are looking to upset the trendy #2 seed in the Nuggets, who are led by savant-level passer Nikola Jokic, who dropped an incredible stat line of 43 points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists in the Nuggets’ Game 6 loss to the Spurs.
Tip-off for Game 7 of the Spurs-Nuggets series is set for 10pm ET on Saturday night, on TNT.