NEW YORK (AP) — Denver’s Nikola Jokic was fined $50,000 and Minnesota’s Julius Randle was fined $35,000 for their roles in an altercation near the end of Game 4 of the teams’ playoff series, the NBA announced Sunday.
Both will be eligible to play when the series resumes Monday with Game 5 in Denver.
The incident was evidently sparked when Minnesota’s Jaden McDaniels took an uncontested layup with 2.1 seconds left and the Timberwolves already leading by 14 — a play the Nuggets took exception to, given how the game had been decided.
Jokic, the NBA said, “initiated the incident by confronting and shoving” McDaniels in reaction to that play. Randle, the league said, “escalated the incident by forcefully inserting himself into the scrum and shoving Nuggets guard-forward Bruce Brown.”
Jokic and Randle were assessed technical fouls and ejected from the game.
“He scored when we’d stopped playing,” Jokic said. “You guys saw what happened.”
The teams are meeting in the postseason for the third time in the last four years. Minnesota leads the series 3-1, but will be without guard Donte DiVincenzo for the rest of the season because of a torn Achilles and will be without fellow guard Anthony Edwards indefinitely because of a knee injury. DiVincenzo and Edwards both got hurt on Saturday.
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