The NBA canceled the second technical tie of Los Angeles Lakers that Luka Doncic received during Tuesday evening’s defeat against the Thunder.
The league made this announcement on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after Donic was ejected into the fourth quarter of the 136-120 defeat in Oklahoma City.
Los Angeles led 108-107 with 7:40 to play when Donic was whistled for his second technical fault of the referee JT Orr. Dononic later said that he was in the process of reaching trash cans with a fan of the courtyard when Orr thought that the anger of the Lakers star was directed against him, leading to ejection.
The Thunder ended the match on a 29-12 race to close the victory.
“I have never been ejected as a fan,” said Donic Tuesday evening, explaining how he will often engage with opposing fans without asking Arena’s security to intervene. “Never. But if (the fan will) talk, I’m going to talk, as always. It had nothing to do with ref. So I didn’t really understand.”
Orr also gave to Doncic a technology in the third quarter, when Doncic argued that a fault was missed when the Lakers striker Jarred Vanderbilt was affected in previous possession.
Crew chief Tony Brothers was questioned about the two technical faults during a swimming pool report after the match.
For the first, which came with 4:02 to play in the third quarter, Brothers said that Doncic “produced blasphemies against a match manager”. For the second, Brothers said that Doncic “looked directly at an official language and used a vulgar language”.
The fan, Jeremy Price, who qualified as “the guy as a tattoo of the court”, told ESPN that Doncic cried out and not the referee.
“During the match in the match, I mentioned that he was short (on his shot) and he missed him, and he turned around and he pulled an explanatory back and I saw himself seeing him and, at that time, he declared it,” Price said on Tuesday evening.
Price, who said he also mince with Doncic last year in the Thunder’s eliminatory series against Dallas Mavericks, said Orr “might have” could be confused for who was addressed to Donic.
“This is probably why he picked up this technique, to be completely honest,” said Price.
The ejection changed the course of a competition match between the Lakers, ranked n ° 3 in the Western Conference, and Oklahoma City, which owns the overall record n ° 1 of the league at 65-14.
Dononic and the Lakers are back in action on Wednesday evening, when the star returns to Dallas to face the Mavericks for the first time since the February blockbuster trade between the teams.
Dave McMenamin’s information from ESPN was used in this report.
