Things got testy on Thursday night as the Denver Nuggets hosted the Philadelphia 76ers. At one point in the contest, Denver coach Michael Malone got ejected for rushing to the court to confront a game official.
Malone looked like he channeled his inner Nikola Jokic as he charged the referee. Incidentally, it was Jokic himself who tried to play the part of the peacemaker this time around. Here's the heated moment:
Michael Malone gets thrown out of the game after getting into it with one of the refs – the #Nuggets fans in Ball Arena approve of him sticking up for his squad. pic.twitter.com/LwifPqkiK9
— Joel Rush (@JoelRushNBA) November 19, 2021
The Nuggets coach clearly didn't like what he was seeing from the referee and he wanted to make his feelings known about it. For a second there, this gave me flashbacks of Jokic's full rage display against Markieff Morris of the Miami Heat.
For his part, however, Malone knew exactly what he was doing here. He knew that he would get himself ejected for his emotional outburst and perhaps this was his way of trying to breathe some life into his team, who at that point, was down nine points at the mid-point mark of the third quarter.
Unfortunately for Malone and the Nuggets, it didn't work. The Sixers continued their dominance over Jokic and Co. and they ended up taking a convincing 103-89 road victory over Denver. Looks like Malone's going to be fined for this one too, so it's a bit of a double whammy for him.
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