The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced today, Saturday, that Bucks forward Thanassis Antetokounmou has been suspended one game without pay for headbutting Celtics forward Blake Griffin during their 140-99 loss to Boston on Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:
- Antetokounmpo, the older brother of Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, was ejected and flagged with a Flagrant Foul 2 for the incident that occurred with 1:25 remaining in the fourth quarter.
- The elder Antetokounmpo had just one point and one assist in the contest, while Griffin added four points and one assist.
- Antetokounmpo will serve commentary on Sunday when it hosts the Bucks 76ers.
- Milwaukee (55-22) is in a tough race with Boston (54-24) at the top of the Eastern Conference standings.
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Antetokounmpo’s older brother doesn’t play all that much. Thanassis has only appeared in 33 games and played just 138 minutes this season, so he won’t have much of an impact on Sunday’s Bucks showdown against the third-ranked 76ers, but the Bucks and Celtics may see each other again in the postseason and this incident could reignite. Fire in a postseason game. The Bucks and Celtics are on their way to being the first and second seeds in the East, so any rematch will have to come in the Eastern Conference Finals, but it will be a much anticipated matchup considering they played each other in game two. last season’s tour.
It was also the second time this season that the Celtics had an incident with the Antetokounmpo brothers as Thanasis and Marcus Smart got verbally confrontational when Jaylen Brown and Giannis Antetokounmpo had a brief physical altercation with two minutes remaining in the Celtics’ 139-118 win over the Bucks on Christmas Day. – insatiable
background story
The headbutt occurred after a hard foul by Griffin, who was seen clutching his right cheek and smiling after the contact. Teammate Jaylen Brown then handed Griffin a face mask as they laughed on the sidelines.
“I thought Blake handled it really well,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzola said after Thursday’s game. “It’s not something we went into training camp… I thought (Griffin) handled it really well, just laughing at it, detaching himself from it and just being a bigger person.”
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(Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
