Referee Tony Brothers was at it again during Friday night’s game.
Brothers hit Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic with his 16th technical foul of the season against the Portland Trail Blazers. Doncic was angry as he felt he was undercut on an end-of-quarter heave from halfcourt and went to complain to Brothers. With a seemingly quick trigger, Brothers gave Doncic the technical.
After the game, which Dallas won 128-78, Brothers offered an extremely weak explanation for the technical when asked about it by the media. He said that Doncic got the T for “continuously complaining” but added that Doncic did not use any profanity toward him.
The technical foul could have a major impact on the Western Conference playoff race, as 16 technical fouls in a single season triggers an automatic one-game suspension. While the technical could still be rescinded, Doncic is slated to miss Sunday’s season finale against San Antonio for the time being. That matters since the Mavs are just 0.5 games back of Golden State for the No. 3 seed in the West and own the season tiebreaker over them.
There is some fault on Doncic’s part for putting himself in that position, especially when he recently stated that he was done complaining to the refs. But that was still a soft-as-tissue-paper technical from Brothers, who also had a similarly questionable call just a few days ago.
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