Fighting Off Whole Mavs Squad, Russell Westbrook Hit With 1st Playoff Ejection In 16 Years

Russell Westbrook is on a roll tonight. And not in favor of the Los Angeles Clippers. Maybe in a roundabout kind of way. But definitely, none of his antics helped put up the scores. Playing in his 16th year, the 35-year-old was issued with his playoffs ejection in a crucial matchup. After being assessed as a flagrant foul for his hit on Josh Green, he’s taken to fighting off the entire Mavericks team.

In the fourth quarter of the game, with 6:10 left on the clock, “Brodie” tackled Luka Doncic, who was streaking up the court. Well, he tried to tackle, but the momentum caused him to nearly crash down. But thankfully for the Mavs, Luka escaped kissing the floor. Grant Afseth tweeted the video with the caption, “Another great “basketball” play from Russell Westbrook.”

The entire Dallas squad came at him while Mavs fans were booing at him from the stands. And the refs tossed him out for his questionable play. His stat line for the night was one point, one assist, three rebounds, and two blocks in 19 minutes of game time. He also went 0-of-7 from the field and 0-of-4 from beyond the arc.

As the game ended, Dallas took the lead in the series (2-1) with a 101-90 victory over the Clippers. But it was a sad affair for LA. Even with Kawhi Leonard, albeit an injured version, the ‘City of Angels’ seemed to be lacking any guidance from above or within. The team had 19 turnovers while the ‘Big 4’ combined 38 points. And that’s only because James Harden scored 21. Without Harden, the trio of Russ, Kawhi, and PG had a mere 17 points.

In stark contrast, Luka and Kyrie Irving combined for 43 and Doncic finished the night on a double-double. Westbrook on beast mode didn’t help the team much, either. Other than getting ejected, of course. Russ has been on the receiving end of a lot of technicals for quite a long time now.

Russell Westbrook would soon join the likes of Karl Malone and Charles Barkley for most techs

We all know the baddest of NBA players in the league’s history. It seems like Russell Westbrook is also planning to make a case for himself in there, as well. He came into the league in 2008, selected as the fourth overall pick by the Seattle Supersonics, now known as the OKC Thunder.

And since 2010, Westbrook has been a regular in the technical fouls column. In fact, he has led the league in the most techs acquired in 2015 and 2020. To this date, he has 205 technical fouls to his name. Of course, this is the number for the regular season. And as far as ejections go, he’s been tossed out of games nine times in his career.

Now, he has even got his first playoff ejection to add to his growing list. If that’s not enough, Tim Reynolds of AP Sports tweeted an interesting fact. “Per SportRadar, Russell Westbrook had the first 1-flagrant, 2-technical, 1-point-or-less game in the NBA since Kendrick Perkins in 2005.”

There is no doubt that by the time Russell Westbrook retires, he will be on par with the NBA legends. Because despite the ejections and techs and whatnot, there is no arguing that Malone, Barkley, Rasheed Wallace, etc. were greats in their own right.