Portland Trail Blazers All-Star Deni Avdija commented on his late-game altercation with Stephon Castle during Portland’s 114-93 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
On the play, Avdija was whistled for a foul on a Castle layup attempt at the 2:13 mark of the fourth quarter. After scoring through the contact, Castle then pressed the ball into Avdija’s chest. The move sparked a brief shoving matchup and heated exchange of words between the two players.
It ended with technical fouls being assessed to both.
In the postgame press conference, Avdija was asked to share his perspective of the sequence. Here’s Avdija’s response:
“I think he’s a good player. I have a lot of respect for him, but … the shoving the ball into my chest is unnecessary. I don’t play those games. It’s not who I am. You can be tough. You can be physical, but there’s a level of disrespect that I’m not gonna accept. He does a lot of provocation throughout the whole game, and I think at one point it was just disrespectful. And as I said, I’m not playing that.”
Avdija finished Game 4 with 26 points on 8-14 shooting from the field (2-3 on 3s), plus seven rebounds and three assists. Castle finished with 16 points on 6-14 shooting and eight assists.
The two will meet again when the Blazers face the Spurs in San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. PDT. The Spurs lead 3-1 in the series.
