From the comical play of Blake Griffin by throwing a shoe at Cory Joseph‘s face, to Sunday night's confrontation between Brandon Jennings and Casper Ware, this year's NBA preseason has been very eventful, to say the least.
On Monday night, something bizarre happened again when the Detroit Pistons hosted the San Antonio Spurs. The home team's starting small forward, Marcus Morris, fouled out for the first time in his career.
That might seem customary for some, but he committed his sixth personal with 10:53 remaining in the third period. In addition, head coach Stan Van Gundy placed a cap of 15 minutes of action for his rotation players.
After picking up two early fouls in the opening quarter, Van Gundy had no choice but to sit Morris the bench. Morris started the second frame and picked up his third foul after only 2:38, and his fourth personal 11 seconds after that. The 27-year-old returned to the floor after the halftime break and committed his fifth and sixth fouls only 13 seconds apart.
A clearly frustrated Morris talked about the what he did not expect to happen during the game and also gave credit to the Spurs:
“Well, I didn't expect to foul out today, but you know, I think it would have been a little bit better if I was out there. Just having the ball in my hands a little more, moving a little more. But they're a good team — have a lot of veteran guys on their team. Guys that he (Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) been coaching forever.”
The good news for the Pistons and their 6-foot-9 forward is that this happened during the preseason. Coaches use these games to check on the conditioning of their players and run some plays they practiced during training camp.
The Motor City faithful would just need to hope that what happened to Marcus Morris on Monday will not carry on to the regular season, when the games matter.
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