The Denver Nuggets grinded out a hard-fought 114-106 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night, and the win was made even more impressive when considering that Nikola Jokic didn't play in the second half after he was ejected late in the first half. Jokic's ejection was surprising, but it sounds like a specific magic word resulted in him hitting the showers early.

Jokic was pretty quiet by his typical standards in his 16 minutes of action (4 PTS, 9 REB, 6 AST, 2-5 FGM) before he was tossed for arguing a no-call from the referees. On the surface, Jokic's ejection was pretty confusing, but it turns out it was his use of profanity towards the ref that resulted in him quickly getting a double technical and an ejection from the game.

NBA referees have drawn the ire of fans everywhere with some questionable ejections early on in the new campaign, and Jokic's falls into that category. Even though he allegedly used profanity towards a ref, assessing him a double technical without any sort of warning seems like a steep price to pay for one of the best players in the game.

Either way, Denver managed to hang on and pick up a win over the lowly Bulls, but they surely would have liked to have Jokic out on the floor so that things would have been easier for them. What's in the past is in the past, though, and Nikola Jokic will be looking to stay on the court for the full game when the Nuggets take on the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night.