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The New Orleans Pelicans pulled off a superb 24-point comeback on Saturday afternoon to beat the Boston Celtics in overtime, 120-115. While the end of the game was somewhat marred by relentless criticism, it was still a brilliant display of some of the league’s brightest young stars.
Sadly, the actual playing on the field wasn’t the only story of this one. JJ Redick’s strange ejection early in the fourth quarter is also getting a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons.
In the first possession of the fourth quarter, Redick received a technical foul for complaining. Pretty standard stuff. It was the next trip upstairs where things got really weird. Redick tried to make it to the basket and was fouled by Celtics rookie Aaron Nesmith. He then returned the ball to the referee, and immediately received a second technique and was ejected.
Redick couldn’t believe what was going on, and even the advertisers were confused, suggesting that Redick must have said something to win the exit. However, it turned out that was not the problem at all. The referee thought Redick threw the ball too hard at him, say after the game that the technique was developed to “throw the ball in the direction of an official with force”.
Now, was this the sweetest toss ever? Obviously not. Redick was clearly still frustrated and put a little more into this rotation than he probably should have. But was it something that deserved an ejection? Obviously not. The only reason he ended up hitting the referee in the leg was because he wasn’t looking. If he was ready for the ball, he could have caught it easily and there would have been no problem.
The good news for Redick was at least that the Pelicans managed to pull it off, so this incident didn’t end up costing his team. Still, it’s a bit of a shame that that takes away from what used to be a fun game.
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