While the Celtics looked like they were going to cruise to a victory over the Hornets on Friday, there was some late drama. Grant Williams was ejected with 2:02 left in the game because of a hard foul on C‘s star Jayson Tatum. There wasn’t a huge scuffle after the fact, but Williams was thrown out due to the flagrant-2 foul after review.
After the game, crew chief James Williams revealed in a pool report why Williams was ejected on the play. Hornets wing Miles Bridges was also ejected with 33.9 seconds left in the game because he hit a dead ball into the Hornets bench.
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“Grant Williams was ejected from the game because his foul was upgraded to a Flagrant Foul Penalty 2 and per rule that carries an automatic ejection,” Williams said. “At review we saw that he accelerated his speed prior to the contact, and so he makes significant contact with the dribbler.
“The acceleration is considered wind up, the impact was significant, potential for injury, so this was determined to be unnecessary and excessive, which gets us to a Flagrant Foul Penalty 2. Again, by rule, that is an automatic ejection from the game.”
On Bridges: “He received one Technical Foul, one unsportsmanlike Technical Foul, for knocking the ball into the stands-bench area with force,” Williams said. “By rule, that is one Technical and an automatic ejection.”
The Celtics weren‘t thrilled about the Wiliams foul, including Jaylen Brown calling out his former teammate. Brown said he believed the act was intentional and added it was like a football play. Williams, for his part, says it wasn‘t intentional and that he’s still close friends with Tatum, so there was no malicious intent behind the whole ordeal.
Regardless, the Hornets fell apart down the stretch despite sticking close to the defending champs for most of the night. The Celtics and Hornets now meet again at 6 p.m. Saturday to finish off the back-to-back in Charlotte. After Williams’ hard foul on Tatum, there’s a bit more juice to that game as the two teams meet again after some chippy play late.
“I don‘t think anybody thought it was a malicious intent by any means just because you don’t see anybody running up to me,” Williams told reporters. “JB was frustrated because you don’t want to hurt your teammate and stuff like that, and I understand that. There was nothing, in my mind, that difficult or intentional.”
