NBA official Joey Crawford has been suspended by the league for his actions during the Mavs/Spurs game the other night. He gave two technicals to Tim Duncan, who was sitting on the bench at the time, resulting in Duncan’s ejection.
Here’s some footage from You Tube:
After the game, the usually stoic Duncan commented in the locker room:
I understand that Crawford felt that Duncan was showing him up on the bench – and he was – but he’s got to have a thicker skin in that situation. This type of disrespect for the officials runs rampant in most professional sports and especially the NBA. Duncan’s laughing showed a lack of respect for Crawford’s judgment and authority, but Crawford needs to check his ego at the arena door. He made his point by giving him the first technical, but crossed the line when he ejected Duncan from the game. For his part, Duncan shouldn’t have been surprised that he got a second technical; he laughed harder after the first technical, and that earned him technical #2.
Duncan also said that Crawford challenged him to a fight:
“He looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to fight? Do you want to fight?”‘ Duncan said. “If he wants to fight, we can fight. I don’t have any problem with him, but we can do it if he wants to. I have no reason why in the middle of a game he would yell at me, ‘Do you want to fight?”‘
If that’s the case, Crawford has really gone off the deep end. Duncan has the reputation for being one of the classiest players in the league, so the fact that he’s involved in something like this is a bit of a mystery.
