Updated: March 2, 2013, 8:34 pm ET

Metta World Peace: ‘I Play Hard, Not Dirty’

By HOOPSWORLD
Basketball News & NBA Rumors

Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace is not upset with the NBA for retroactively upgrading a hit he had on the Denver Nugget’ Kenneth Faried to a flagrant-2 foul. But he is skeptical of Denver Nuggets Head Coach George Karl for mistaking his aggressive play as being dirty.

I saw it on film and I thought it was — whatever the word is — premeditated,” Karl said.

“As I get older, I’m learning how to just play hard,” World Peace responded. “It’s not like I brought this aggression to the league. I didn’t invent this. This is what we watched, this is what we saw. The Bill Laimbeers and the [Dennis] Rodmans, they play hard and they wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. They played hard. They played with passion. We grew up wanting to play with passion. So, when the guys say we’re dirty, we’re just playing hard. We’re not playing dirty. We’re just playing. We’re reacting. We’re going hard. We want to win.”

via Dave McMenamin of ESPN Los Angeles

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