A Spurs Fan Is Suing Zaza Pachulia For "Maliciously" Injuring Kawhi Leonard, Annnnd That's About Enough Of That

SFChronicle- The Spurs have not asked the NBA to review Zaza Pachulia's foul on Kawhi Leonard, which caused Leonard to re-injure his ankle and forced him to miss the final 20 minutes of Game 1 and all of Game 2.

Juan Vazquez on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Pachulia and the Warriors on behalf of Spurs season ticket holders and San Antonio card shop What's On Second.

"All we are asking from the court is that this type of behavior, that can and does cause serious injury to our team and those that love it, not be allowed in San Antonio," said Alfonso Kennard, Jr., lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

The suit claims Pachulia acted "without excuse or justification, intentionally and maliciously invaded the landing zone of an opposing athlete, Kawhi Leonard."

Pachulia's action, the complaint reads, "devastated the quality of the Spurs' chances of being competitive and having additional games in their home arena, both in the Western Conference Finals and also potentially in the NBA Finals" and also negatively affected "the value of the tickets purchased by plaintiff subsequent to their purchase."

Among the plaintiffs' demands:

• Judgment against defendants for a sum within the jurisdictional limits of the court for all their actual and exemplary damages in a sum determined by the trier of fact but in no event greater than $73,000.00;

• A temporary restraining order be issued without notice to defendants and that defendants and others named herein be restrained from engaging in the conduct described above; and

• Such other and further relief to which plaintiffs may be justly entitled.

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Yup, we found it. That, right there, is officially the line. I would have been cool with Spurs' fans - and really NBA fans in general - bitching about a dirty play that dramatically effected the watchability of a long anticipated series until that long anticipated series ended in woefully uninteresting fashion. Unfortunately, now that legalities are involved I know longer want to hear about how some dopey Russian terrorized the Western Conference Finals when the same team more than likely would have won regardless.

Listening to the ongoing backlash towards the not-so-cautionary closeout was like watching one friend drunkenly try to fight another friend who spent weeks intentionally getting under his skin. You could understand the frustration and  had no problem letting it play out how the spurned party saw fit....until the spurned party got his ass kicked and immediately went full-douche with the "good thing my dad is a lawyer" line.

I hate Zaza Pachulia as much as the next guy, but - as much as he resembles one of Vladimir Putin's henchman - he's not actually a criminal for being a little careless with his feet. All sports fan should feel as though they have been robbed of one of the few instances of interesting basketball in these NBA Playoffs, but you can't file a claim for a hypothetical. A player who was already hurt got a little more hurt, and - if we are being honest with ourselves - the ankle of a guy as active as Kawhi Leonard probably wasn't going to hold up anyway. It sucks that it gave out at a time that so clearly soured the intrigue of the series, but a lot of things suck and most of them don't require a law suit. Life goes on, and I am pretty sure Spurs' fans have enough fucking titles to get them through this.