On Friday night, with seconds remaining in the Bucks-Wizards game, Brandon Jennings took offense to a hard foul on his teammate Monte Ellis by Brad Beal.
After a steal and layup attempt by Ellis, Beal offered a hand to Ellis to help him up after the foul. Brandon Jennings came out of nowhere to the defense of his teammate and shoved Beal from behind, sending him into a photographer’s lap.
It was fortunate this didn’t escalate into more. Beal and Jennings were both ejected from the game. Here’s the player’s reaction after the game via Bullets Forver
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.”
Video via Los That Sport Blog