On Monday night, Jayson Tatum delighted the TD Garden crowd with a victory, but not before he offended an official.
With 4:47 left in the fourth quarter, the Boston Celtics star was called for a foul on New York Knicks player Immanuel Quickley. Tatum objected to the decision and responded with a roar and a loud clap. This was a strong outburst, but it didn’t seem out of the norm for the final quarter of a close game.
However, Tatum was given a swift technical foul by referee Gediminas Petraitis, who had a different interpretation of the play. (The sequence can be viewed here.)
Tatum insisted he did nothing wrong when questioned to explain what transpired following the game.
“I shouldn’t have got the tech,” Tatum said, as seen in the video player above. “I mean, it’s tough. It’s an emotional game, right? The fans can see it, everybody watching can see it; it’s hard to play the game without emotions.
“I understand there is a fine line and a balance, but in the fourth quarter, we were playing defense, and I screamed nothing crazy, not even directing it towards anybody. And then for the ref on the other side to come and give me that tech, I don’t agree with that. It wasn’t right. But I can’t go back and change it now.”
The good news for Boston is that Tatum’s technical didn’t cost the Celtics. In fact, the NBA MVP candidate appeared to use his frustration as fuel, drilling a trio of huge 3-pointers in the final four minutes to seal Boston’s 114-98 victory.
“I mean, yeah, I was mad, because I thought I didn’t deserve that tech at all,” Tatum said. “I’ve gotten a lot of tech in my career, which I know I deserve. That wasn’t one of them.”
Tatum has spent too much energy arguing with officials in the past and has made a point to not let missed calls affect him. So, while it wasn’t ideal to see Tatum get hit with a technical, Celtics fans should be encouraged that he stayed locked in both before and after the incident. He scored 17 of his game-high 35 points in the fourth quarter, hitting 6 of 8 shots (4 of 5 from 3-point range) in the final 12 minutes.
Boston is back in action Wednesday night against the 8-1 Philadelphia 76ers at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Boston.
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