Almost a year has passed since his incident with Kawhi Leonard last postseason, but Zaza Pachulia is still Public Enemy No. 1 in San Antonio.
Pachulia’s Golden State Warriors played the Spurs in San Antonio on Monday, and the seven-footer was given quite the brutal treatment by the home crowd. The Mercury News’ Mark Medina detailed how Spurs fans showered Pachulia with far more than the usual boos, jeering him when he touched the ball and even going so far as to laugh and applaud at his in-game missteps.
Zaza Pachulia gets called for a foul, and Spurs fans erupt in approval as if it were retribution for the Kawhi closeout
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) March 20, 2018
And now Zaza is booed when he gets the ball, laughed at when he bricks a turnaround
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) March 20, 2018
It's funny hearing Zaza getting the kind of boos Kobe used to get in San Antonio
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) March 20, 2018
As hinted at above, Pachulia has been reviled by the San Antonio faithful ever since he appeared to step underneath Spurs star Kawhi Leonard in last year’s Western Conference Finals. It also doesn’t help that Leonard has yet to return to form ever since, be it from that injury or from various others.
Granted, the Spurs got the 89-75 victory over the short-handed Warriors on Monday, and Pachulia finished with a mere six points and three rebounds. That might not be enough to appease the local fans though, as they probably would have preferred for Pachulia to never have been let back into the city.
