ORLANDO \u2014 Luka Doncic alleged that Orlando Magic center Goga Bitadze said an expletive-laden statement in Serbian about Doncic\u2019s family during the third quarter of the Lakers\u2019 victory over the Magic on Saturday night, a moment which preempted Doncic\u2019s 16th technical foul of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I let my team down getting that last tech, but honestly, I wasn\u2019t trying to (get the technical foul),\u201d Doncic said after the game. \u201cHe said at the free throw (line that) he would (expletive) my whole family. And at some point, this is basketball court. At some point, I just can\u2019t stand it. I got to stand up for myself. But I know I got to do better. My teammates, I know they have my back, so I let them down today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moments after Bitadze and Doncic chirped at the free throw line while the Slovenian star shot a pair of free throws, both players were assessed technical fouls. In the postgame pool report, crew chief Marc Davis said that the pair of players earned technical fouls for \u201ccontinual taunting towards one another\u201d and \u201cunsportsmanlike comments directed towards one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bitadze told ESPN and the Orlando Sentinel over the phone after the game that he heard Doncic say something about his mother in Serbian and that the back-and-forth that followed, claiming that he repeated the phrase back to the Lakers star. When Bitadze said the Serbian insult, curse-like phrase, it caused Doncic\u2019s reaction, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he feels like I said something too much or crossed the line, I apologize as a man,\u201d Bitadze said. \u201cI can take (accountability), but I didn\u2019t say anything but what he said. What he came out and said, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the truth. I know that\u2019s not the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bitadze also said postgame: \u201cI have all the respect for Luka and what he has done. And I really respect everybody\u2019s family. Where I come from, it\u2019s really sacred and we really respect each other\u2019s families and I would never directly say that. He just said some inappropriate things in the Serbian language, which I played in Serbia. I understand, I don\u2019t know if he knew I understood what he said. So I just said it back.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Doncic\u2019s technical foul is not rescinded by the league, Doncic will have to serve a one-game suspension against the Detroit Pistons on Monday night \u2013 the penalty for 16 technical fouls. Doncic had not committed a foul in eight games; his 15th technical foul came against the Denver Nuggets 16 days ago, which also marked the last time the Lakers lost.<\/p>\n
Said Lakers coach JJ Redick about Doncic\u2019s technical foul: \u2018We\u2019ll obviously try to get that rescinded. I\u2019m not sure what happened. I do know that there were certain things said in a language that the referees couldn\u2019t understand, in references to Luka\u2019s mom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doncic said that he hopes that the league will rescind the technical foul, wiping away the 16th mark to bring him back to 15 technical fouls, an amount he has finished multiple seasons in his career with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely hoping \u2026 Hopefully, it (gets) rescinded,\u201d Doncic said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO \u2014 Luka Doncic alleged that Orlando Magic center Goga Bitadze said an expletive-laden statement in Serbian about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5818,2295,139,141,140,110],"class_list":["post-201109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-lakers","tag-nba","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}