Waiters responds to Gobert: 'I've never been a dirty player in my life'

Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters isn't going to let Rudy Gobert call him out for what the Frenchman believed to be a "dirty play" without standing his ground and defending himself.

"I've never been a dirty player in my life," Waiters said Sunday prior to his team's game against the Detroit Pistons, according to the Miami Herald's Andre C. Fernandez. "I went for the ball. Tell him to get out of his feelings. And that's what it is, just like that."

Diving for a loose ball in the third quarter when the Heat took on the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Friday, Waiters collided with Gobert's right knee and caused him to suffer what was diagnosed at the time as a right knee contusion.

"The Stifle Tower" then posted footage of the play on social media later that night, essentially calling out Waiters for being dirty without using the word outright.

"I didn't even know that was him," Waiters said of the dive. "I went for the ball, making a basketball play. He goes right to social media. I ain't a social media guy. At the end of the day, that (expletive) don't matter. Tell him to get out of his feelings. We won, they lost, so what.

"I've never been a dirty player in my life. If he thought it was a dirty play, you come to me as a man and you ask me and I'll tell him the same (expletive) I'm saying now. I saw it on social media, late, after the win. I'm not a dirty player."

While Gobert returned in the fourth quarter of Utah's eventual 84-74 loss to Miami, he has since been ruled out for the next four-to-six weeks with a bone bruise. He had been averaging 13.9 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks for the now 6-7 Jazz.