Jared Dudley knew what we was getting himself into. Still, the Brooklyn Nets forward believes the officials overreacted to the fracas in Game 4 between his team and the Philadelphia 76ers that left he and Jimmy Butler ejected.
After the Sixers held on to beat the Nets 112-108, Dudley expounded on the incident that began with a hard foul from Joel Embiid on Jarrett Allen, and only further flamed the fans of animosity in the league's most contentious first-round series.
“I thought it was a hard foul on Embiid,” he said, per Michael Scotto of The Athletic. “I thought he hit a little bit of the arm, the ball and thought the follow through kind of hit [Allen] on the head or hit him on like his neck area and fell down. It was just something that's just been escalating for a while. I think it was Game 2 the elbow, falling down when it should have been a flagrant two. They didn't call a flagrant two. Then, they're in the press conference laughing, and then I see it like that.
“How I thought it was, just a good push letting [Embiid] know we're not having it today,” Jared Dudley continued. “I got pushed, which is fine. Then, we get up, and we both go our separate ways. It should’ve been a double tech [on he and Butler], if you want, do a flagrant on both,” Dudley continued. “For them to eject not only Jimmy but myself is just ridiculous. No punches were thrown. No one acted, no one said anything crazy out there .It was a good playoff push on my part, and then we go our separate ways.”
Joel Embiid indeed hit Allen with a vicious elbow in Game 2, resulting in a dangerous level of contact that he and Simmons certainly shouldn't have been making light of on the postgame podium. And Dudley, of course, raised tensions after the game, when he said, unprompted, that Ben Simmons was just “average” in the halfcourt – an accurate critique, to be fair, but the type not normally shared in public by opposing players.
The Sixers lead the Nets 3-1. Game 5 is on Tuesday at Wells Fargo Center.
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