Inactive D'Angelo Russell found a way to get into the Nets boxscore during Monday's loss to the Knicks....by clapping. The clapping after Tyler Zeller's blocking foul on Enes Kanter annoyed referee Bryan Forte so much, Forte hit Russell with a tech. As ridiculous as this tech was, it's not Russell's most ridiculous.
Back in 2015, a rookie Russell was given a tech for an overzealous celebration after watching a 37-year-old Kobe Bryant posterize a 21-year-old Clint Capela.
“I like took off and ran across the baseline, tried to get back before the ref saw me and, uh, I caught Denzel’s attention and the ref caught me and I don’t know what we did,” Russell said after the game.
Kobe joked that it was “the best tech that D’Angelo will ever get."
When Russell was told about an upcoming fine, he said, “How much is that? How much am I going to be fined?”
Then he ran to Kobe and said, “Hey man, you’ve got to pay my tech on that one.”
In true GOAT fashion, Kobe rejected the request.
“Meh, you ran the baseline on your own free will.”
If you want to see a well-deserved tech on Russell, you can check out the following video of him exchanging some words with Damian Lillard. But what really made this exchange so amusing was Lillard's "poke the bear" post game comments.
"I'm from Oakland. I ain't with that extra stuff. Nobody can do just what they want to me. And I got called for a foul to start the third quarter for reaching in, but when I reached in, the only reason there was contact was because his elbow came up again.
"After he blocked my shot, I was walking to my spot, and I felt like he went out of his way to get that elbow in there again. And I told him, 'That ain't gonna fly.' And I wasn't interested in anything else that was said after that. We ain't going to do it on the court so we'll be in the back and whatever happens, happens. It was nothing. He poked the bear, and you see what happened after the game."