During Sunday’s EuroBasket game between Turkey and Georgia, Philadelphia 76ers guard Furkan Korkmaz grew animated, butted heads with a Georgian player and was ultimately ejected. The clip makes clear that something set Korkmaz off and, apparently, things didn’t end once he was ejected.
https://twitter.com/sergenkumas/status/1566495624408797184?s=20&t=J3DeaiUKppWEHv2-3uaVVQ
According to various reports, three Georgian players confronted Korkmaz on his way to the locker room following his ejection and initiated a fight.
“When I was talking to the tunnel, our conditioning guy was with me,” Korkmaz said, per BasketNews. “As soon as we walked out of the tunnel and were trying to reach the locker room, I saw three Georgian players alongside two security guys running at us. We started throwing punches at each other. That’s basically what happened.”
“It was like a street fight. There was no talk or conversation. People just came at us and were trying to attack us. Of course, we reacted and tried to defend ourselves,” he continued. “I also think it’s a security problem. But I don’t know if it’s a security problem or if they just showed tolerance to their players.”
Clearly, this incident understandably frustrated Korkmaz. Fortunately, he was back at Turkey’s team shootaround on Monday. Turkey and Belgium square off on Tuesday.
https://twitter.com/sergenkumas/status/1566793190140682242?s=20&t=J3DeaiUKppWEHv2-3uaVVQ
It seems as though Korkmaz has moved on and will be in the lineup for Turkey’s next game.
