Nuggets star Nikola Jokic paid the price with a technical foul for making contact with Suns owner Mat Ishbia.
The incident happened late in the second quarter of Game 4 of the team’s second-round playoff series in Phoenix on Sunday night.
“[The ref] he told me I was elbowing the fan,” Jokic told reporters postgame. “The fan put a hand on me first so. I thought the league is supposed to protect us or whatever. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see.”
Suns wing Josh Okogie went diving in the stands for a loose ball near the sideline where Ishbia was sitting.
With the Suns having lost possession, Jokic then rushed over to retrieve the ball from Ishbia.
The former two-time NBA Most Valuable Player was met by some resistance as he tried to rip it away.
Ishbia then appears to knock the ball from Jokic’s grap and the ball went further back in the crowd.
The push-back he received from Ishbia while trying to get the ball may have annoyed Jokic, who may not have know it was the Suns owner.
He then extended his left elbow into the owner while calling for the ball with his other hand.
Ishbia, who played basketball at Michigan State, went with the blow and fell back into his seat with his hands raised as if looking for a foul.
Two security guards then rushed in front of Ishbia.
“The ball went over into the corner there and one of the fans was holding the ball,” referee Tony Brothers said to a pool reporter. “Jokic came to get the ball, grabbed it away from the fan, then after that he deliberately gave him a shove and pushed him down, so he was issued an unsportsmanlike technical foul.”
There were a few minutes of confusion as officials sorted out the weird scene, and then Jokic was assessed a technical foul.
Ishbia, who reportedly returned to his seat in the second half, was “fine” and didn’t worry about the altercation as much as the game, according to the Associated Press.
Jokic never did get the ball.
A fan threw it back to Okogie after he got up, with Denver leading 55-54 and 2:36 to play in the first half.
“I think it’s crazy that Nikola got a technical foul in that situation,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone told reporters after the game. “Going to get the ball, and some fan is holding onto the ball who wants be a part of the game. Just give the ball up, man. The deemed Nikola doing something that was excessive and they gave him the tech. I still don’t really understand it.”
A reporter then told Malone that the “fan” was the Suns owner.
“I don’t give a s–t,” the coach responded.
“[Ishbia] got us a point,” Suns star Devin Booker said with a smile and a laugh after the game. “He did his job over there. He got us a point.”
The Suns won the game, 129-124, despite 53 points, four rebounds and 11 assists from Jokic to even the series at 2-2.
The 43-year-old Ishbia, the CEO and chairman of United Wholesale Mortgage worth an estimated $7 billion, bought the Suns and Phoenix Mercury for $4 billion — a record for an NBA team.
