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Pachulia: Westbrook's accusation that I tried to hurt him is 'childish'

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Zaza Pachulia insists he did not intentionally try to harm Russell Westbrook.

The Golden State Warriors center said it's "childish" of Westbrook to accuse him of seeking to hurt him.

"I don't want to go back and forth on those kind of things," Pachulia said following Saturday's 112-80 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, as quoted by The Mercy News' Mark Medina.

"That's not the case."

Westbrook said "obviously it was intentional" that the Warriors' big man fell on his legs while he was down.

"Nobody touched me. He fell over my leg. He tried to hurt me. But hey, that's how it goes," the reigning league MVP said, adding Pachulia is "for sure" a dirty player.

Here's another angle of the incident, which shows Nick Young's foot hooking the back of Pachulia's leg before he tumbled:

Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard both took to social media to side with their fellow star point guard and against Pachulia, who has a reputation for being a dirty player, to which Russ' teammate Paul George alluded.

"You know Zaza, you know his history. Nobody pushed him. He aimed his fall ... He's on the end of hurting a lot of guys," George said, according to ESPN's Royce Young.

Pachulia undercut Kawhi Leonard as he was landing during Game 1 of the 2017 Western Conference finals, causing the San Antonio Spurs forward to miss the remainder of the series and the NBA to implement the "Zaza Rule."

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