Things got out of hand for just a few minutes last night and within a few minutes, both Austin Rivers and Doc Rivers were ejected from the Clippers–Rockets game.
Here's a look at the sequence that led to both ejections.
Austin Rivers as well as Doc have both spoken out about the incident.
“I saw the video,” Austin Rivers said. “I didn't do nothing wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I reacted to the play; I had no idea the ref was there. I was backing up and I said, ‘Call the foul.' When I did it, I was turning and he was right there and my elbow touched him. I've never in my career put my hands on a ref, and I don't ever plan to. He knows if I would have pushed him; he would have pushed back [but] he didn't go anywhere. I didn't mean to touch him. As he was giving me a tech, I was trying to tell him I didn't mean to do it. I didn't do anything wrong — I stand by that I didn't do anything wrong.”
It definitely didn't appear intentional from Austin which is why the decision ended up being so surprising.
Doc then had this to say about why he got tossed.
“When they threw Austin out for whatever reason, they called an and-1 on that,” Doc Rivers said. “You can see it on the replay, they absolutely called an and-1 and they forgot to give us a free throw. So I called a timeout and said, ‘Hey, you forgot to give us a free throw,' and they didn't know what we were talking about. And I said, ‘No, you forgot to give us a free throw. Come on, you guys don't know what you're doing,' and that was it.”
It will be interesting to see how the NBA handles the aftermath of this and if any of the technicals get rescinded.
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