Boston’s Jayson Tatum was called for the most unnecessary technical foul against Oklahoma City’s Aleksej Pokusevski on Monday night.
Tatum missed a layup on offense, then fouled Pokusevski when he got back on defense, and he was clearly a little frustrated with himself. He clapped his hands in frustration the same way you would when you are disappointed in yourself after realizing you burnt your toast or didn’t get to the post office in time before it closed.
But the referee clearly thought Tatum’s reaction was about the call, and the Boston superstar was whistled for an extremely unexpected technical foul.
Jayson Tatum was called for a technical foul on this play. pic.twitter.com/vqFDG74hfj
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 15, 2022
There was absolutely no reason for a technical foul, but the damage was already done, and the Thunder took a trip to the free-throw line to cash in after the gifted opportunity.
It didn’t take long for the clip to make the rounds on social media, though, and Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant wasn’t shy about sharing his opinion on what happened.
Jayson tatum just received the worst tech I’ve seen in the nba in a while. I’m actually laughing
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) November 15, 2022
According to Durant, the whistle against Tatum was the “worst tech” he had seen in a long time. Durant added that the call was so bad that he actually just started laughing.
After the game, when asked about what happened, Tatum shared a similar reaction. He said he was only frustrated with himself, not the referee, and that all he could do about it was laugh.
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