On a night where there were some ridiculous refereeing decisions, perhaps the most inexplicable in Game 4 between the Lakers and Rockets came at the end of the game.
Late in garbage time, Adou Thiero and Aaron Holiday had a minor scuffle that should have resulted in nothing notable. Instead, James Williams instantly ejected both players after giving each a technical in a truly bizarre decision.
After the game,
LeBron was asked about Deandre Ayton’s ejection for a questionable Flagrant 2 foul and while he spoke of his displeasure of that, he also brought up, unprompted, Thiero’s ejection.
“I’m more p—– off about them kicking Adou out,” LeBron said. “That was uncalled for and made no sense. I think that’s the first time he’s ever been thrown out of a game in his life. I don’t think that was warranted. Give him two technicals? The kid just got in the game. That was ridiculous.”
It was a sentiment shared by the locker room as a whole. According to Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Luka Dončić has Thiero covered.
In the locker room after the game, Lakers star Luka Doncic told Thiero he would pay whatever fine the NBA imposes for the infraction.
This altercation — and it doesn’t even feel like it should be called as much given how minute it was — was part of a testy final few minutes between the two sides. At the end of the game, the two teams had what amounted to an intense staredown before exiting to their locker rooms.
After the final buzzer, the trash talk continued between both teams at center court. Several Lakers players told ESPN that Rockets forward Jae’Sean Tate was taunting their team, using curse words to name call, and invited the 6-foot-10, 240-pound Kleber to fight him.
Genuinely, it feels like a lot of this was created by how the game was officiated. Ayton’s ejection started it to a degree, but the ejections of Thiero and Holiday raised the emotions of the two teams.
Now, at the same time, we’re at the point in the series where the two teams will naturally not like each other, having played four times in a week. But three ejections preceding an on-court brouhaha of sorts at the final buzzer is not normal.
There’s no taking it back now, either. The rest of this series is going to be particularly chippy and everyone is going to have a bit of a shorter fuse than normal.
But to circle back to Thiero, it’s nice to see the team’s two leaders immediately step in to defend their rookie after a pretty egregiously bad decision.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
