Granger: Noah Is A 'Dirty Player'

Danny Granger had to be restrained from going after Bulls center Joakim Noah as the teams exchanged handshakes on the court at the end of the Bulls' series-ending 116-89 win.

Granger accused Noah of playing dirty throughout the game, taking cheap shots at Pacers, including forward Josh McRoberts, who was ejected in the third quarter.

Granger was in the hallway outside the locker room using expletives to describe Noah's play.

"Everybody saw what Josh did and he got ejected," Granger said. "Nobody caught what happened first. It's always the second man. (Noah) was playing dirty the whole game. My teammates got caught with it and nothing happened."

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FPS said:

Lets not just look at what Noah did. Lets also look at some pretty hard fouls from Jeff Foster. Dude knocked down Rose pretty badly a couple of times, I think thats what it takes sometimes from teams. To show that your not going to get bitched around by another team. More specifically to your best player too.

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The Lone Granger said:

He is, there's no doubt about it. He takes jabs, elbows, and pushes whenever he has a chance. McRoberts deserved to get tossed, but then again Noah did in almost every game this series, as did Boozer. They have a very bad mindset about how to play the game in my opinion. They're good and then win, but they win dirty. Granger did a good job calling him out on it, because it's very true.

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bestkeptsecret13 said:

LMAO at this guy...

Did you watch any of the games? Ever heard of Jeff Foster? Did you miss the elbow drop he layed on Luol?

I've watched Joakim Noah for 4 seasons and he is far from dirty. Maybe in Chris Bosh's world he is dirty, because he hustles, but that's the only thing I can think of.

Danny Granger needs to just be quiet. Dude has been talking all series and has done nothing but make himself look like an idiot.

Noah should've busted a move all over the Pacers...

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Noah returned the praise, even after hearing of Granger's frustration.

"I played dirty? Ok. I'm just trying to win basketball games, man," Noah said. "It's the name of the game.

"I'm just out there trying to do what I gotta do. Like i said, I give a lot of credit to their team. The play hard as hell. They were competitive. I don't have anything bad to say about them. Everybody saw what happened out there. Now you want to call me a dirty player? I don't think I've ever been a dirty player. It is what it is. It's ok."

The Pacers were the ones credited with dictating the series' physical style in the first three games, but Noah seemed to turn up the intensity in Game 5.

McRoberts appeared to catch an elbow to the neck when he and Noah battled near the lane. He then tried to return a shot, for which he was assessed a flagrant 2 foul and ejected. But McRoberts didn't agree with Granger's assertion that the play was dirty.

"I'm not mad about it," McRoberts said. "He got a good hit on me. They caught me trying to hit him back.

"It's part of the game. I'm not going to say it's dirty. That's Game 5 of a playoff series. You can't say it's dirty, it's part of basketball."

Bulls guard Kyle Korver was surprised to hear that a Pacer was crying foul.

"Come on now. All this stuff we've talked about with the Pacers the last few days and how they're [giving] hard fouls," Korver said. "Come on. It's the playoffs, right?

"It's the playoffs. That's what it is. There's going to be hard fouls. There's going to be stuff being said. I think they were mad they were down a little bit, and Jo played with a lot of energy. Jo played great. Jo's one of those guys, when you're not on his team he pisses you off. That's just the way it is. He's like Jeff Foster. When he's on your team, you love him. When he's on the other team, you hate him. And that's one of the special things about Jo."

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The Lone Granger said:

Hurricane, you'll be enjoying your Summer after the next series. Just saying, the Bulls looked bad, we exploited their weaknesses.

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