DENVER—Nuggets coach George Karl disagrees with the $25,000 fine given to forward Kenyon Martin, calling it “way out of line and crazy.”
Martin was penalized by the league on Monday, the day after knocking Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki to the court in Denver’s second-round, series-opening win.
“I’m going to repeat, I think it’s wrong and Kenyon didn’t deserve a $25,000 fine,” Karl said after his team’s shootaround in preparation for Game 2 on Tuesday night.
Karl said he watched replays of the foul 10 times Monday night, coming away even more perplexed by why the league felt a fine was warranted.
“I saw some hits in Chicago-Boston, some hits in Atlanta-Miami—this is not on top of the list from my observation,” he said. “It’s amazing to me.”
The league declined to comment.
Over his career, Martin has been known for his physical play.
Did that work against him?
“That’s for you all to scrutinize and talk about,” Karl said. “As a coach, when you’re confused and your players are confused it’s tough. My job is to help. At this moment, I’m as confused as Kenyon is.”
Rex Chapman, the Nuggets’ vice president of player personnel, was contacted by NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson on Monday and had a chance to voice his opinion.
Chapman said in an e-mail, “We will accept their decision and move forward.”
Martin was also assessed a flagrant foul 1 for the contact, which occurred with about 6 minutes left in the first quarter.
Still, Karl isn’t going to request that Martin dial down his tenacity.
“Kenyon is a tough defender that gets at times the wrong interpretation because he’s so tough,” Karl said. “He’s not going to get the perfect whistle because the way he plays creates a lot of interpretation. We’ve just got to move on.”
Nowitzki said after the game he didn’t have a problem with the foul, calling it “just a hard playoff foul.”
The Mavericks All-Star has no beef with Martin, either.
“We both played hard, had some great battles and left it at that,” Nowitzki said Tuesday. “We were laughing at one move that I made on the block where I had like 10 or 11 fakes and he was just standing there. He asked me what the hell I was doing?”
On the play in question, Nowitzki was off-balance when Martin put a shoulder into him, causing him to stumble and then go sliding across the lane.
“There are a lot of guys that are better actors than some other guys,” Karl said. “You want the best team to win. You don’t want the team that can trick you into winning.”
Nowitzki took offense to the notion he made the foul look worse that it really was.
“I don’t think I really acted on that play. It was pretty obvious,” Nowitzki said. “I was on the baseline, I got bumped and I got the foul. Sometimes with the continuation in this league, I guess he wanted to make sure that I didn’t get the lay-in and they would count the basket.”
Even though it cost Martin $25,000, the fine might have been worth it for him and the Nuggets. It seemed to set the tone for the game, if not the series, that the Mavericks were in for some hard play against the rough-and-tumble Nuggets.
That said, Karl objects to the perception his team has abruptly become too assertive.
“All of a sudden, we’ve been labeled bullies and too physical. Where was this at the end of the season?” Karl said. “This is, I think, teams crying a little bit that we’re playing hard. We’re playing harder than maybe they are. I’m not going to tell my team not to play harder.”
Nowitzki said he doesn’t think the fine will cause Martin to alter his style.
“K-Mart is K-Mart. He’s an aggressive player, an aggressive defender,” Nowitzki said. “I don’t think that’s going to be in the back of his mind. He’s a competitor. So am I. So we’re going to have a battle the whole series.”
