{"id":574743,"date":"2026-02-01T08:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/574743\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T08:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:34:24","slug":"nba-punishes-kenny-atkinson-for-actions-during-cavs-loss-to-suns-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/574743\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA punishes Kenny Atkinson for actions during Cavs loss to Suns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/fearthesword.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> head coach Kenny Atkinson was ejected from the team\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fearthesword.com\/cavs-scores-results\/43796\/cavs-recap-phoenix-suns-cleveland-cavaliers-donovan-mitchell-jarrett-allen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">blowout loss<\/a> to the <a href=\"http:\/\/brightsideofthesun.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> on Friday. He picked up his second technical foul in the fourth quarter after arguing with a referee and incidentally bumping them in the process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Atkinson was also critical of the officiating after the game as well, calling what transpired \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EEB4Tev-tr8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">circus-like<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cWe had one free throw after three quarters against a team that fouls 26th [worst],\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EEB4Tev-tr8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atkinson said<\/a>. \u201cAnd then the second free throw we got was after a flop. \u2026 I thought the game got out of hand quite honestly. \u2026 Parts of the game, it seemed circus-like, quite honestly. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s what we want as a league. Certain characters in this league take liberties, and we don\u2019t stand up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Atkinson later pointed out that it wasn\u2019t the official\u2019s fault for why his team lost. The Cavs didn\u2019t play their best as they were unable to take care of the ball, had poor perimeter defense, and couldn\u2019t make enough shots to offset it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">On Saturday, the league announced that it was <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAPR\/status\/2017768690524000649?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">fining Atkinson $50,000<\/a> for his actions in Friday\u2019s loss. The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAPR\/status\/2017768690524000649?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">press release stated<\/a> he was fined for \u201caggressively pursuing, berating, and making inadvertent contact with a game official.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The loss in Phoenix snapped what was a five-game winning streak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Cavaliers will be on the road for the next week and a half as they have four games remaining on their five-game Western Conference road trip. They will take on the <a href=\"http:\/\/blazersedge.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson was ejected from the team\u2019s blowout loss to the Phoenix Suns on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,147,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-574743","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavs-news","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-phoenixsuns","14":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115994458309170215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}