I don't think he was trying to deflect the blame (although I will agree with Aggie that may be the case), just questioning why the backboard shattered when his pipsqueak guy dunked. A thunderous dunk in a previous game can make a backboard vulnerable to a light dunk in a later game. If you read his next line after the one you quoted, he wonders why the backboard wasn't inspected after that thunderous dunk. I wonder also, because you never know after each game where there has been a hard dunk whether the next game's simple dunk could lead to a shattered backboard. What if this dunk hadn't happened during pregame but during the game itself? How many players would have been under the backboard when all that glass came down? You probably see where I'm going with this.