David West knocked out the Cleveland Cavaliers’ mascot, and is really ‘sorry’ (VIDEO)

It isn't as if Indiana Pacers forward David West harbors some severe aversion to Cosplay, or furries, or grown men acting like silent dogs. He was just playfully engaging in a slap-fight with Cleveland Cavaliers mascot "Moondog" before a game on Wednesday evening when the pooch took a fall, needing a trip to the hospital as a result. Yes, at some point in my life I harbored dreams of writing the Great American Novel, but in a lockout-truncated season that the NBA slopped our way this year, I have no qualms passing this "news" along.

Here's the Akron Beacon Journal's Jason Lloyd on the incident, quoting West following the Cavs' overtime loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night:

Dogs don't understand English, David.

Lloyd went on to report that Moondog -- named after the nickname of the somewhat-needlessly disgraced Cleveland-area DJ Alan Freed -- needed only an ice pack to nurse what turned out to be an eye injury. But not before Pacers All-Star center Roy Hibbert seemed to think it was all part of Moondog's schtick:

Now, courtesy of Trey Kerby at The Basketball Jones, we have a hard-to-see video of the knockout. It's a satellite dish feed, and it's hard to tell even after repeated viewings what exactly happened, but the watch is worth it just to listen to Cavs analyst Austin Carr call Hudson Hawk "the man" (what?), and West fell Moondog with a nice left hook:

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