SALT LAKE CITY — Rudy Gobert is not happy.
With less than a minute left to play in the Utah Jazz’s 101-92 loss to the Toronto Raptors on Monday night, Gobert was running down the court after a Jazz turnover when OG Anunoby sent a wild elbow toward Gobert’s face when the two were near midcourt, a move that the officiating team either failed to see or ignored.
As the play continued, Gobert motioned toward the referee, and when he got no response he took matters into his own hands, first charging in front of Anunoby with a little force and then pushing the Raptors forward when he took exception to the move.
The official stopped the play, separated the players and then after a review of the events both Gobert and Anunoby were ejected from the game.
From Gobert’s perspective, he did what he had to do and vowed to continue taking care of things his way if the referees weren’t going to call aggressive fouls.
“He tried to elbow me in the face and the guy that’s getting paid to protect us, the players, didn’t do his job,” Gobert said after the game. “There was a little altercation and we both got ejected when I didn’t do anything back pretty much, which I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense to me. Next time I’ll do justice myself so the official can eject me for a reason.”
The NBA will no doubt be levying a fine on Gobert for his postgame comments, a consequence that Gobert is well aware of.
The consequence that Gobert’s ejection had on the game is a little bit harder to define.
Trailing by just five points with 40 seconds left when the ejections took place, the Jazz had a chance — as they did many times on Monday night — to still seize the victory, but fell flat in the final moments.
Gobert’s frustration had been mounting throughout the night, as he was charged with fouls when he felt that they were unearned, including picking up two in a 13-second span midway through the fourth quarter, his fourth and fifth of the night.
The Toronto Raptors, who are known as one of the teams that plays a physical brand of basketball, were able to frustrate many of the Jazz players and muscle their way to a rebounded advantage of 53-34 on the night and draw 20 fouls while going 16 of 18 from the free-throw line.
“There was a little altercation and we both got ejected when I didn’t do anything back pretty much, which I don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense to me. Next time I’ll do justice myself so the official can eject me for a reason.” — Rudy Gobert
“That’s kind of what they do. They’re definitely the most consistent team at playing that way, being aggressive and being the first one to hit you,” Joe Ingles said after a 20-point performance off the bench.
Though there is an understandable amount of frustration that comes from non-basketball plays like Anunoby’s elbow, there are other plays that the Jazz will have to learn to play through and deal with, especially if they are going to survive a postseason run.
Despite Gobert’s exasperation at the officials and Anunoby, he admitted that he and his teammates need to do better when physically aggressive teams disrupt their basketball equilibrium.
“No one likes to get pushed around or elbowed in the face, stuff like that,” he said. “But, it’s part of the game and if you want to be a championship team, you have to play through that and be able to sustain our focus and our connectiveness through the physicality.”
Speaking of championship teams, it is the reigning NBA champion Raptors who were able to outplay the Jazz on Monday despite it being the final game of five-game road trip and the second night of a back-to-back for a Toronto team that was missing two of their starters to start the game in Marc Gasol and Fred VanVleet and lost Norman Powell in the opening quarter.
If there is any kind of trait to try to emulate of the Raptors, it’s probably not the deploying of errant elbows and hostile fouls, but rather their resiliency in the face of a tough situation.
The Jazz could use a little bit of that.