Memphis Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. thought the Miami Heat’s Myron Gardner crossed a line late in Saturday’s contest between the two teams.
Pippen connected on a three-pointer with 1:59 left in his team’s 136-120 defeat. Gardner made contact from behind after the shot, prompting Pippen to confront him at the other end of the floor.
“I thought it was kind of a cheap shot,” Pippen told reporters. “He kind of hit me when I didn’t see him. I thought it was a soft move. I just thought he needed a hug on the other end.”
Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra praised Gardner’s “unbridled intensity and effort and energy” and came to his player’s defense.
“Hs heart is in a great place, and he’s wired like us competitively,” Spoelstra said, per the Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang. “So you add that type of intensity to this competitive will that will boil over at times. I don’t want to take away from that competitiveness.
“We love Myron. I don’t know what happened on the three-point shot. I just saw Pippen fall. I haven’t seen the replay on that one. I just saw the play after that, and that looked like it was 95 percent Pippen. But let’s just see what it is. I love Myron regardless.”
Both Pippen and Gardner were ejected from the game after a video review.
Pippen finished with 18 points and six assists in 21 minutes, while Gardner played six minutes and scored five points.
The NBA league office will presumably review the incident and determine whether any additional punishments are warranted.
While Gardner’s initial bump came inside the final two minutes, the league only releases official last two minutes reports in games where the margin was three points or fewer.