BOSTON — Grant Williams grew frustrated after an offensive foul call moments earlier. He tried to draw one of his own, rose to his feet and darted past official Cheryl Flores, who he subtly collided with.
“I saw block, and kind of got up and tried to run off in disagreement, and then I look up, and I’m like, ‘oh crap, I’m about to make contact.’ So I tried to avoid (contact), and that’s when my glute hit her hip,” he said.
The contact drew Williams an ejection and suspension, the first of each he could remember from his basketball career. He’s going to try to interact less vocally with officials going forward, something he struggles with as someone who needs to make his voice heard. Williams tried to apologize to Flores through union back channels, since players can communicate with referees off the floor.
He denied intentionally brushing Flores, which crew chief Marc Davis accused him of doing in his pool report following the game. Williams will miss Friday’s game against the surging Cavaliers, with Joe Mazzulla indicating will force Boston to test out more of its depth while sticking to the team’s speed and skill advantages over a bigger Cleveland team. Williams stayed on the practice floor longer than most of his teammates on Thursday, running the floor with assistant coaches and getting shots up on either end of the floor.
“You never want to let your team down, it’s something that I feel like I did,” Williams said. “When it comes to the punishment, it’s just. I made a mistake, so for me, it’s something I probably won’t challenge. Especially the fact that one, it’s a female referee, and two, it’s not something we want our players to be doing in the league. No matter whether it was inadvertent or not, I gotta be better, I gotta be more mindful and conscious of my surroundings and conscious of my mental state, and not letting anything affect me during the game.”
The incident followed a frustrating night for Jayson Tatum, who picked up an early technical foul, his second of the season, for waving off a goaltending call in the third quarter. Tatum and Joe Mazzulla tried to point out a similar reaction by Nikola Vucevic, shaking the ball over his head following a foul call near Flores. Davis indicated incessant complaining along the sideline and a refusal to leave the floor left him with no choice but to eject Mazzulla. The NBA later rescinded the…
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