Getty Kevin Durant of the Golden State Warriors who was assessed a double technical foul and ejected from the game.
After mutliple Golden State Warriors were fined following complaints towards the referees, Kevin Durant, who had been one of the players fined, decided to jump back into the mix against the Denver Nuggets.
After complaining to the refs about a non-call on the prior possession, Durant was T’d up with 8:21 left in the 3rd. Durant didn’t take kindly to that and would proceed to jump into an expletive-laden rant against the ref. That would lead to a technical on Durant and subsequent ejection.
Check out the clip below.
WATCH: Warriors’ Kevin Durant Goes on NSFW Rant at Ref, Gets Ejected
KD expresses himself anddddddd gets ejected…
With the technical, Durant was assessed his 14th technical foul of the season. By hitting the 15th technical on the year, Durant also has a mandatory one-game suspension headed his way on the next technical foul as the Warriors look to fend off the Nuggets for the top overall seed in the Western Conference.
At the time of the ejection, Durant had 21 points on 9/13 shooting. Along with his efficient scoring, Durant chipped in six assists alongside three rebounds. Durant was also a force on the defensive side of the ball prior to his ejection, picking up two blocks to go along with his efficient offensive performance.
Despite Durant’s strong individual play, he was still far from the team leader in team plus/minus. The Warriors were already up by 20 at the time that Durant was ejected, yet only had a plus/minus of +12 when he was on the floor. Compare that to fellow Warriors stars Stephen Curry, Andre Iguodala, and Draymond Green who all posted a plus/minus of over 20 against the Nuggets in a similar time frame despite having far less gaudy stat lines.
Warriors Dominate Nuggets, Take Big Step Towards Securing Homecourt Advantage
With the game nearly out of range before even entering the fourth quarter, the Warriors were able to (per usual) get their starters some rest. Durant was ejected with 8:21 remaining in the third and ended up playing 21 minutes. That falls in line with the rest of the Warriors starters who finished with 29-30 minutes on the game and were mostly pulled after the end of the third.
The Nuggets would tighten* the game up at the end and bring the score to within 20 points but never posed a serious threat to the Warriors and their gameplan. Nikola Jokic‘s recent struggles continued into tonight as he only scored 10 points on 4/10 shooting from the field. Increasingly down the stretch, opposing teams have been playing Jokic extremely physical yet he hasn’t been drawing the same foul calls players like Embiid or Towns typically draw.
Jamal Murray was a lone bright spot for the Nuggets as despite having a poor shooting night, he was able to fill up the box score in every other category while willing his way to 17 points on 14 shots. A dynamic two-way threat, Murray looks to be one of the Nuggets’ brightest young stars as the young core continues to grow alongside one another.