Spurs’ Danny Green says team forgot about Zaza Pachulia incident

Do the San Antonio Spurs harbor any ill feelings toward Zaza Pachulia? According to Danny Green, apparently not.

In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, San Antonio Spurs star Kawhi Leonard injured his ankle after Golden State Warriors center Zaza Pachulia closed out on his jump shot attempt. Leonard didn’t return for the rest of the series, and the Spurs were swept.

Almost six months later, the San Antonio and Golden State will have their first matchup of the 2017-18 season on Thursday night, and at the AT&T Center. That means Pachulia will get the “warmest” of welcomes from the Silver and Black faithful.

How will the Spurs react to the 2017 NBA champion’s return? According to Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News, Danny Green said the team “kind of forgot” about the incident. He noted how they needed to move forward.

“We kind of forgot about it,” Spurs guard Danny Green said Wednesday when asked about Pachulia.

“It’s a play that happened,” Green continued. “He’s a player like everybody else in this league. It worked out not-so-great for us. We have to move forward. We can’t continue to look back and harp on it. It doesn’t matter now.”

With the season seven games in, maybe the Spurs moved on and got over it. The Western Conference Playoffs (and the NBA Finals) are in the distance, and with the next NBA Finals as the goal, worry or retaliation wouldn’t be worth it.

As for the fans, don’t expect them to forget about what Pachulia did. The anger goes back months, with others still bothered by it now.

Spurs fans won’t forget anything but the NBA as a whole shouldn’t forget that Zaza Pachulia has tried to injure plenty of others before this https://t.co/ZjRcTG5Hz3

— The Spursian Empire (@Spursian_Empire) November 1, 2017

Zaza Pachulia really deserves that ring bc w/o him Spurs would've..

— Phil Bermejo (@NicoBermejo_) October 18, 2017

If zaza pachulia wasn’t the dirty player he is, I can see the spurs pushing that series to 7

— Scarface (@MyNameisJRod) September 28, 2017

Look for it to be a topic of conversation on Thursday’s Inside the NBA on TNT, the network that will nationally broadcast the Spurs vs. Warriors. Maybe the player intros will be broadcast live, too, and show the potential disdain the San Antonio fans will show.

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Thursday’s game kicks off at 8:00 p.m. ET.