Suns coach Monty Williams called for the NBA to create a rule to disallow players from infiltrating an opposing team’s huddle after a confrontation between Kevin Durant and Nikola Jokić on Tuesday night.
With just 37 seconds left in the third quarter of Game 5, Devin Booker was shooting free throws and his teammates were in a huddle by their bench when Nuggets guard Bruce Brown and Jokić tried to infiltrate the meeting. Durant lightly pushed Brown away and then put his forearm into Jokić’s chest, causing the the two-time MVP to flail his arms and stumble backward (which led to lots of jokes on NBA Twitter). Durant and Brown were assessed technical fouls for the altercation, but Williams still wanted something more concrete to be done.
“The league has to figure out all that stuff,” he said after Phoenix’s 118–102 loss, referring to players inserting themselves into an opposing team’s huddle. “There’s just too much silliness going on in the NBA when it comes to that. Everybody does it. There should be a written rule that you shouldn’t walk over to somebody’s huddle, but everybody in the league does that, it’s kind of silly.”
"The league has to figure out all that stuff. It's just too much silliness going on in the #NBA when it comes to that. Everybody does it."
— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) May 10, 2023
Monty Williams as Nikola Jokic and Bruce Brown were hovering around #Suns huddle. Kevin Durant and Brown got double techs. #Nuggets pic.twitter.com/irehW7vREQ
Durant, who finished the game with 26 points, downplayed the situation.
“It wasn’t anything serious,” Durant said. “They were excited. They were up big, and we was trying to draw some stuff up. And you know how that goes. I don’t think it was nothing.”
KD got a tech after pushing Jokic 👀 pic.twitter.com/KuKAWTOL8a
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 10, 2023
Game 6 between the Nuggets and the Suns is scheduled for Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN.
