Last night Monta Ellis was fouled hard by rookie Bradley Beal on a layup attempt. After Ellis fell into a row of nearby photographers, Beal reached out his hand on what looked like an attempt to help the Bucks guard off the ground- but Brandon Jennings didn’t see it that way. Jennings came out of nowhere and shoved Beal in the back, pushing him to the ground. Following the altercation, and official review, Jennings and Beal were ejected with Flagrant-2 fouls. Jennings has always been a bit of hothead. Check it out after the jump.
Player reactions via Bullets Forever:
After the game, each of the three players reacted to the incident.
On the foul:
- Beal: ”I went for the ball.”
- Jennings: ”With 30-some seconds left, I know a team never wants to give up an easy basket, but in that type of situation I feel like you should just wrap the guy up instead of just pushing him or fouling him once he’s in the air.”
- Ellis: “He just fouled me hard.”
On Jennings’s reaction:
- Beal: ”I guess [Jennings] was defending his teammate, I guess, so he came up and pushed me. It’s just all part of basketball. It gets physical. I mean, it is what it is. I just have to deal with it.”
- Jennings: ”I was just trying to protect my teammate. I didn’t think I was going to get kicked out for it…. when you see a nasty fall, your first [instinct] is ‘Watch out, everyone get out of the way.’”
- Ellis: “That’s what a teammate is supposed to do. It was a great job. That’s what we gotta do. We gotta make our mark. If somebody foul us like that, we gotta react.”
