Fesenko blocks LeBron's head cause someone's got too much hops
After being called up from the D-League on Saturday, second-year big man Kyrylo Fesenko called it “awesome” to be back in the NBA with the Utah Jazz.
That’s probably not the word LeBron James’ head, which the refs apparently consider part of the ball, would use to describe Fesenko’s return and/or forearm.
When James went up for one of his many dunks Saturday, Fesenko attempted to block his shot in the first quarter. Fes missed the ball, but smacked James in the forehead, seemingly giving “The King” whiplash after he finished an incredible hustle play and dunk.
No foul was called, even though contact was obviously made and James ended on the ground for a minute or so in pain. Fesenko told me he felt bad and definitely didn’t intentionally try to hurt James.
“I was just going for the block, but he jumped too high,” he said. “I don’t mean to hit him. If you see the replay that I will try to reach it (the ball), but it happened. I say ‘excuse’ after.”
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Fesenko played in eight D-League games with the Utah Flash after being assigned there on Jan. 6. He averaged 12.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists in just 27.3 minutes.
Aside from whacking James and getting dunked on, Fesenko also got in a nice slam of his own Saturday. He wasn’t much of a factor, however, tallying zero rebounds or blocked shots (sorry, blocked heads don’t count).
He thoroughly enjoyed those 7 minutes and 34 seconds, though.
“I find out today that I missed my team, I missed the players, the arena, fans, everything,” he said. “I’m really happy to be back and do what I do best: play basketball.”
He’s not sure how long he’ll remain with the Jazz, but he plans on trying to please his coaches.
“As much as coaching staff needs me I’ll try to do my best to work hard and to do everything coach wants me to do,” he said.
Lastly, Fesenko declined to comment on how he felt he played either Saturday night or with the Flash. He likes to let the coaches comment on that, not himself. He did admit to being a bit shocked to play this soon back with the NBA team.
“Yeah, I was a little bit surprised, but I was ready,” he said. “But obviously I have a lot of work to do.”
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Fesenko, who mocked my Russian the last time I blurted out a couple words to him, was so glad to be back he even seemed more appreciative of my linguistic efforts. After my interview, he replied with a “You’re welcome” when I muffed the word “spasiba,” which I was told means “Thank you.” Of course, the way I said it probably sounded more like “placebo,” but Russian isn’t exactly my forte as Fesenko knows well.
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Watching the Celtics-Mavericks halftime show on ABC, and I found this interesting. Doc Rivers said his “Fave 5″ NBA players to watch while growing up were:
Julius Erving
Austin Carr
Walt Frazier
Earl Monroe
And…drum roll…Jerry Sloan
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Anyone else really curious/interested/excited to watch the Jazz play Denver tonight? It really is one of those potential make-or-break games, at least as far as the Northwest Division race is concerned.
The Jazz have 19 losses and the Nuggets only have 15, so a Utah setback would put Denver ahead by a sizable five games in the loss column. That’s a lot of ground to make up with only 36 games left.
“Yeah, it is big,” admitted Matt Harpring.
Added Kyle Korver: “That’s a really big game for us, division game. We’ve got to come out and bring effort like we did in the second, third and fourth quarter (Saturday). It’s the whole game (tonight). We do that and we’ll have a shot.”
The scary thing for Utah is that the Jazz are a well-documented 1-8 on the tail end of back-to-back games.