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Referee crew chief explains Giannis Antetokounmpo’s two technical fouls
As far as the chief of the referee crew that officiated the Milwaukee Bucks-Detroit Pistons game on Wednesday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo deserved the two technical fouls that subsequently ejected him from the game.
Crucial calls against Giannis
In a Pool Report interview conducted by Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, Crew Chief Rodney Mott explained the two technical fouls that Giannis got—one in the second quarter and another one in the fourth period.
“On the play, Giannis drives to the basket, and he thinks he gets fouled. Then he approaches the game official and uses profanity, which is an unsportsmanlike technical foul and was issued at that time,” Mott explained the first technical foul on Giannis.
Giannis’ second technical foul came at the nine-minute mark of the third. It came after Giannis collared a defensive rebound, dribbled to the end of the court, and completed an emphatic one-handed dunk over Detroit’s Isiah Stewart.
Mott said Giannis did an unsportsmanlike conduct shortly after the dunk that merited a technical foul.
“After the dunk, Giannis turns to his opponent and taunts him, and a taunting technical foul was called an unsportsmanlike. And he was ejected from the game, per rule, because two unsportsmanlike technical fouls, you are ejected from the game,” Mott said.
No Giannis, no problem
The ejection left Antetokounmpo in disbelief as he heavily contested the call. He even sat on one of the courtside seats, and it took a while before he left the playing court.
While 'The Greek Freak's' ejection was a big blow, it seemed to have lit a fire under the Milwaukee squad as they put on an epic comeback in the fourth quarter to pull off a 120-118 win. Milwaukee trailed by as many as 10 points in the fourth, but the Giannis-less Bucks fought back.
Dame Lillard scored 18 of his 34 points in the fourth period, while Brook Lopez sank a crucial triple and pulled off a crucial block in the closing minutes that enabled the Bucks to escape with the win.
