The NBA Player and Referee Relationship Hit an All-Time Low Last Night
NBA players and referees have not been too kind to each other this year. It feels like we’ve seen more ejections this early in the season than ever before. Players you hardly ever see get T’d up are getting thrown out of games left and right. The league even set up a god damn program to try and mend the relationship, that’s how bad it’s gotten. But what happened in last night’s Celtics vs. Knicks game was ridiculous, unprofessional, and inexcusable.
Marcus Morris lands awkwardly after the dunk and he lays on the ground for a while
(via @clippittv) pic.twitter.com/8RdiPGs2wp
— Def Pen Hoops (@DefPenHoops) February 1, 2018
In this video, you’ll see Michael Beasley going up to contest Marcus Morris’ dunk attempt, ultimately elbowing him in the head in the process. First of all, why wasn’t there a foul called on that? They even reviewed it and ended up assessing a technical foul to the Celtics. It made zero sense, but back to my point. Morris fell hard on the floor and stayed there, clearly in pain. So what did the refs do? You would think that normal protocol is to stop the game and get the player off of the court. Nope! Instead, they decided it was a good idea to have the Knicks inbound the ball RIGHT OVER Morris. You can see Semi Ojeleye and Jayson Tatum both lost their minds over it in the video above. They wouldn’t even call a foul on Ojeleye, who was trying to stop the play by fouling Trey Burke.
Morris only ended up suffering a bruise on his ass, but this was by far one of the dumbest things I’ve seen all season. You really hate the players so much that you’re going to leave one of them on the floor writhing in pain? Give me a break. The officials have been garbage all season, and last night just proved that point even more. It’s starting to get really hard not to take the players’ side in all of this.
Written By: Nick Cherico (@NickCherico2)