Things got a little hairy in the Association on Saturday night, with tempers flaring in a couple of games in the Midwest, and the NBA's disciplinarians decided Monday to hand out some five-figure punishments as post-pop-off correctives.
First up: Milwaukee Bucks guard O.J. Mayo has been fined $25,000 for "aggressively pursuing a game official and failing to leave the court in a timely manner" after being ejected for receiving two technical fouls with just over four minutes remaining in the first quarter of Saturday's visit to Target Center to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves.
After arguing about a no-call on a drive to the basket, refs hit Mayo with two quick Ts and gave him the heave-ho. That drove the 28-year-old Mayo nuts; he rushed back onto the court after official Eli Roe, and had to be pulled off the floor by the jersey by assistant coach Eric Hughes before Bucks security and teammates Khris Middleton and Giannis Antetokounmpo got involved to try to cool Mayo off (or, at least, corral him).
Eventually, Mayo made his way to the locker room, his night over after just two minutes and 47 seconds of scoreless work. After Milwaukee went on to beat the Wolves, 95-85, with six Bucks scoring in double-figures led by center Greg Monroe's 19 points and 10 rebounds, Mayo offered his side of the story to reporters. From Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Mayo was apologetic after the game for losing his cool and having to be restrained by teammates and pushed to the exits by the arena's security force. He was ejected with 4:08 left in the first quarter after playing just 3 minutes.
"A player of ours gets his tooth knocked out, no call," Mayo said. "I felt like I got fouled. I definitely made a poor decision to get kicked out of the game on the road.
"Frankly, I think we're getting tired of not getting calls. We work really hard on our game. We're No. 1 in the entire league in points in the paint.
"I just picked the wrong time to get kicked out of the game. I'm happy we won, though. But a poor decision of mine to misrepresent the Bucks, myself and my family, obviously my teammates."
Whether or not Mayo's complaint has merit — Brew Hoop's Dan Sinclair notes that, despite playing an elbows-in brand of ball that tops the league in paint points, the Bucks fall in the bottom third of the league in both free-throw attempts per field-goal attempt and FTA per 100 possessions, but also that it's tough to jump from that to "we're getting screwed!" — you still can't respond by pulling out your best Dwight Freeney spin move and trying to draw the holding penalty en route to the ref:
And you really can't do it when you've already been involved in a pair of dust-ups this season — first, with long-time foil DeMarcus Cousins during a Bucks-Sacramento Kings game in November, and then with Golden State Warriors power forward Draymond Green after a game last month. When you're already on the league office's radar, it's unlikely you'll escape the watchful eye of justice-dispensing NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe.
O.J. wasn't the only little teapot who boiled over on Saturday. Forwards Marcus Morris and Paul George got into a brief but spirited kerfuffle at the close of the Indiana Pacers' 94-82 win over the Detroit Pistons, during which George scored 21 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter to seal the deal in a physical gamea
After Pistons center Andre Drummond pressured Pacers point guard George Hill into a turnover with 6.4 seconds remaining and Indy leading by 12, George responded by trying to swipe an innocuous pass from Reggie Jackson to Morris with less than five seconds left. In the ensuing scramble for the loose ball, Morris shoved George out of the way; George spoke to Morris' aggression with a chest-bump; Morris answered with a two-handed shove to the chest; and the benches cleared to clean things up after the final buzzer.
"I don't really want to discuss too much of that," Morris said after the loss, according to Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. "They played a good game and we ended up losing it. Ready for the next one."
"It was just competition," George said, according to Jim Johnson of The Associated Press. "It was just the heat of the moment, playing hard and you're going to have moments like that. There wasn't much trash talking going on between me and him (leading up to that), it was just talking with our play."
Well, evidently, Judge VanDeWeghe didn't much like what they were saying. Morris received a $15,000 fine for shoving Paul George, while George got dinged $10,000 "for contributing to the altercation." Part of me thinks George getting a $5,000 break after inciting things with the swipe is a bit unkind, but then, Morris did make the most violent move of the situation, and it's not as if the league hasn't already hit PG-13 up plenty this season:
 | @ScottAgness | |
Paul George’s 2015-16 fine total:
$13K - 6 techs
$10K - criticism of officials
$35K - criticism + profanity
$10K - altercation = $68,000
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Seems like an expensive way to remind everybody you're back, but hey, it's not like George can't afford it.
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