Dejounte Murray Bumped A Referee After The Hawks Recreation 4 Loss

The Boston Celtics moved one sport away from the convention semifinals on Sunday with a 129-121 Recreation 4 win in Atlanta in opposition to the Hawks.

The Celtics ran out to an early lead, and whereas the Hawks would shut the hole within the second half they might by no means wrestle the lead away from Boston. Atlanta managed to get the deficit down to 5 with 3:36 to play within the sport, however that was as shut as they obtained down the stretch, due largely to their incapability to get stops after they wanted them essentially the most. The dagger got here within the type of a scramble drill three from Jayson Tatum, who hit a protracted three after recovering a free ball that Marcus Good dribbled the ball off of both his or Clint Capela’s foot and had it roll into the backcourt.

The printed by no means confirmed a definitive replay, however there was some marvel as as to if the ball truly went off Capela or Good. If it have been the latter, it ought to’ve been a backcourt violation to present Atlanta an opportunity to chop the hole to 2 possessions. As an alternative, it was dominated a deflection and Tatum’s wild three pushed Boston’s result in 12 with two minutes to go, successfully ending the sport.

It was one of many calls in the course of the sport the Hawks weren’t proud of, and after the sport Hawks guard Dejounte Murray determined to confront official Gediminas Petraitis, bumping him and barking one thing in his ear.

Murray would proceed to yell again in the direction of the officers as his teammates directed him to the locker room, as frustrations boiled over a bit for the star guard after the loss. Whereas the Hawks weren’t proud of among the calls within the sport, each groups have been about even in free throw makes an attempt (25 for Boston, 24 for Atlanta) and it didn’t really feel like there was an egregiously unfair whistle for one facet. Even when Murray felt there was, that is actually not the best way to go about expressing that frustration.

The league will virtually assuredly hand Murray a high-quality for this, as a result of making purposeful contact with an official is an absolute no-no for the NBA, and so they’ll seemingly wish to speak to Petraitis to seek out out what Murray mentioned to him as properly. The Hawks already face an uphill battle in Recreation 5 in Boston, but when Murray have been to get one thing much more than a high-quality right here — and we’ve seen one suspension already this playoffs within the type of Draymond Inexperienced — that may be a substantial loss for the Hawks dealing with a must-win sport.

UPDATE: The NBA is certainly wanting into the incident based on Tim Bontemps of ESPN.