Saturday night saw the Minnesota Timberwolves get off to a fantastic start in their Western Conference semifinals matchup against the reigning champs, as they went into Denver and took Game 1 (and homecourt advantage) off the Nuggets.
The star of the game, as is often the case for Minnesota, was Anthony Edwards, scoring 43 points on 17-of-29 shooting to out-duel Nikola Jokic. Edwards took over in key moments, creating buckets for himself and others whenever Minnesota needed him. You could tell how excited he was to play the defending champs and prove himself on that stage.
That emotion should be welcomed on the playoff stage, but after a tough bucket in the third, Edwards got hit with an incredibly soft technical foul for staring down Reggie Jackson. On the call for TNT, Reggie Miller rightfully chastised the officials for blowing the whistle in that situation, noting it’s the playoffs and Edwards didn’t even say anything, he just gave Jackson a little stare as he got set for the next defensive possession.
“Oh, come on, man!… We’re in the 2nd round of the playoffs!”
Reggie Miller wasn’t rocking with this technical foul called on Anthony Edwards 😅pic.twitter.com/hXNJ3lqdqI
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) May 5, 2024
Thankfully, that point the Nuggets got didn’t play into the final outcome and the NBA made sure the T didn’t cost Edwards anything out of his wallet either, as the league rescinded the technical on Sunday afternoon.
Anthony Edwards’ (MIN) technical foul at 1:15 of the 3rd quarter on 5/4/24 (vs. DEN) has been rescinded upon league office review.
— NBA Official (@NBAOfficial) May 5, 2024
It’s the right move, but the league also will need to communicate to their officials that, in the playoffs, the threshold for a taunting technical needs to be really high. This certainly didn’t meet that criteria and hopefully we won’t see any more like it this postseason.
