Phoenix Suns players Jared Dudley and Marquese Chriss have been fined by the NBA for their role in a fracas that nearly upended their game with the Utah Jazz on Thursday night.
Each of the forwards was fined $25,000 after both pushed Ricky Rubio to the floor in the third quarter of Utah’s 116-88 victory. Both were also ejected from the game after a video review.
The Jazz (39-30) had a scare with Rubio, who suffered a knee bruise and was initially listed as questionable for Saturday night’s game against the Sacramento Kings. He was upgraded to available on Saturday morning and practiced in a leg sleeve.
In his Thursday postgame press conference, coach Quin Snyder was furious that Rubio had been targeted for cheap shots for the second time in a two-week span. While he didn’t directly call out the NBA to punish the players more harshly for such incidents, he implied that continued issues could lead to more confrontations (Joe Ingles and Donovan Mitchell were given technicals for leaping to Rubio’s defense).
On Saturday night, Snyder said it wasn’t his place to say whether the fines were just punishment for the shoves. But he said he wanted to make a stand to protect his own team.
“I don’t want [Rubio] to be in the frame of mind where he feels he has to show something, to show that he is tough,” Snyder said. “It was, for me, more of a psychological thing with respect to our team.”
Rubio declined to talk about the fight.
A previous incident earlier in March, when Minnesota’s Jeff Teague hip-checked Rubio to the ground, resulted in an ejection but not a separate fine.
Snyder salutes UMBC
The 16-over-1 upset that no one saw coming? Well, Snyder didn’t exactly see it either.
But he had hope for UMBC coach Ryan Odom in his quest to make history as the only 16-seed to beat a No. 1 — Virginia. His brother, Lane Odom, was an assistant on Snyder’s staff at Missouri, and Snyder has talked to the Retrievers coach a bit in the past.
“Ryan’s someone that we actually correspond with,” Snyder said. “Virginia, I have so much respect for what they do, the discipline and toughness with which they play. But the NCAA Tournament is a thing unto itself. I guess everybody figured it would happen at some point, and it happened. That’s what makes the tournament special.”
Commissioner visits
The Jazz played host to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for the first time this season, taking him on a tour of the renovated Vivint Smart Home Arena.
Silver does stops around the country throughout the season, so the trip was nothing out of the ordinary. But the Jazz also have submitted a bid to host the All-Star Game in 2022 or 2023, and Saturday was the first time Silver had seen the overhauled arena in Salt Lake City. Utah’s hosted the game in 1993.
Silver also toured Utah’s renovated basketball practice facility. He did not do interviews with local media, but did appear on Jazz radio and TV broadcasts.
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