The Indiana Pacers are the last undefeated team.
Along their quest to 5-0, Indiana defeated Detroit 99-91 on Tuesday night. It was a battle of two of the best frontcourts in the game. Indiana with David West, Paul George, and Roy Hibbert. While Detroit features Josh Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.
The individual battle between Roy Hibbert and Andre Drummond was not only physical, it was verbal as well.
Hibbert was a huge fan of Andre Drummond, but after Tuesday night, he’s no longer one.
“To tell you the truth I was a fan of his until tonight,” Hibbert said Tuesday. “He is a real good prospect, but it seemed like he was running his mouth a little bit tonight. He has a tremendous future, but I was a fan of his. I thought he was supposed to have a breakout year this year. Best of luck to him. He can dunk the ball real well and he can block shots and he can rebound. He is going to have a bright future — but I was a fan of his.”
Hibbert doesn’t like yapping on the court. Drummond knows that and admits to trying to agitate him. It was nothing personal. He was simply doing his job and does not care that his fan club lost a member.
“If I lost a fan, I can’t be mad about it,” Drummond said. “If he complained about me talking, that is part of the game. I’m doing what I can do to get in his head, and it obviously worked because he noticed. So I was just trying to play my game and get into his.”
Andre Drummond doesn’t care if Hibbert likes him or not.
“My goal was to not make it easy for him,” Drummond said. “It was to make it harder to get his shots, like it will throughout the season. The jump hook I tried to bang him to get him off his spot — that is what we worked on in practice. If he is mad about that, then he needs to get used to it.”
This could be the start of a new big man rivalry. They face off again on December 16th.