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NEW YORK — Brooklyn's Kevin Durant turned to the Nets bench after hitting yet another 3-pointer over the outstretched arms of one of Utah's big and asked: "Why is he on me?"
"They were starting to switch, so really it was just get (Durant) the ball and get out the way," Nets guard Bruce Brown said. "We know (Rudy Gobert) and Hassan (Whiteside) can't stay with him at all."
The list of players who can stay with Durant is …
So, yeah, Gobert and Whiteside have plenty of company there. Still, Durant's masterful performance gave more credence to the false narrative that Gobert is nothing more than a tall person at the rim.
Remember when Patrick Beverley said, mostly unprompted, that Gobert shouldn't be in consideration for Defensive Player of the Year since he doesn't usually guard the best perimeter defender one on one? Or when Draymond Green used the All-Star broadcast to further push the untrue stance that Gobert can be played off the court?
The naysayers can now point to Gobert's failure to lock down one of the greatest scorers of all time as more evidence. That's something Whiteside — Gobert's once rival turned teammate — just chuckles at.
"You got guys dropping 60 every night. Who is locking somebody up one on one?" Whiteside said last week. "I never understood that. They say this big man can't guard on the perimeter. Hell, guards are getting 60 dropped on them. Guys are good in this league."
Here's the thing: Whiteside used to believe the narrative about Gobert, at least partially. He hadn't watched every Jazz game and so when he heard the perception that Gobert got cooked on the perimeter, he mostly took it as fact.
But watching Gobert day in and day out, he now thinks that notion is laughable.
"Guys really don't score," Whiteside said. "Like, they shoot step-back 3s if they do score. They do the same thing to all these other elite guards that we speak of. That's why every night 50, 60, 50, 60. No guys are just stopping someone. It's rare that someone stops someone over and over, but we see (Gobert do it) at the rim every night."
Entering Monday's game, Gobert held opponents to 49.1% at the rim — the second lowest figure of his career. The Jazz are also 8.0 points better defensively when he's on the court.
"Numbers don't lie — eyes do sometimes," Whiteside said.
That is why despite all the criticism and slander from other NBA players, Gobert is still the betting favorite to win his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award. When asked about the possibility of winning yet another trophy, he smiled and said, "Anything is possible."
"People that know the game, I think have respect (for me), and usually they are the less noisy ones," Gobert said. "At the end of the day, I don't play for anybody's respect. I came from nothing. I'm just trying to do the best Rudy I can be. We all have different journeys. And I don't think making fun of anybody else's struggles or anybody else's journey is taking anyone anywhere."
So don't expect him to fire back at Green, Beverley or anyone else. He may have engaged early in his career; now, he just shrugs it off.
"I've always shown respect to my peers," Gobert said. "And I'm going to keep doing so. I can't control what everybody else says. But when people talk down to you, it is usually when you're doing something right. No one talks down on the people that don't accomplish anything."
A fourth Defensive Player of the Year award would tie him for the most in NBA history, alongside Ben Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo, and cement him as one of the best defender of his generation and among the greatest to ever play the game — that's quite the accomplishment.
Which, in turn, may just open him up to even more slander.
"I don't really know why there are so many shots (directed) at him," Whiteside said. "I don't think people like to see a big man win over and over like that. … I feel like everybody feels like they got better defenders or guys that can do that or do this."
Their eyes sometimes lie. Gobert's number don't.
