Monday night’s Heat and Nuggets matchup saw Denver star Nikola Jokic ejected after he shoved Miami’s Markieff Morris from behind in response to a hard foul. As one might expect, things have only escalated since the on-court incident.
On Monday night, Morris’ brother, Marcus, who plays for the Los Angeles Clippers, took to Twitter to call out Jokic shortly after the game, writing that he “waited till bro turned his back smh. NOTED.”
In response to the apparent threat of retaliation, an account called “Jokic Brothers”—which reporter Mike Singer confirmed is run by Nikola’s siblings—hit back, writing that he “should leave this the way it is instead of publicly threatening our brother.”
“Your brother made a dirty play first,” they added. “If you want to make a step further be sure we will be waiting for you!!”
Marcus replied with, “You got the right ones believe that!” which led to a response of “I don’t believe…I know that!” from the @JokicBrothers account.
The brothers, who were courtside during the whole scuffle and not afraid to show their emotions throughout, only made their account on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, their brother has said that although he needed to “protect himself,” he “felt bad.” Here, a different angle of the interaction shows that Morris’ foul on Jokic wasn’t exactly clean.
Despite the fact that this was clearly a case of a bench player cheap-shotting an MVP in a blowout loss, and said MVP retaliating in kind, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra obviously sided with his player.
“That was a very dangerous and dirty play,” Spoelstra told reporters, according to ESPN. “Keef took a foul, and it was one of those fastbreak take fouls, and he did with his shoulder. You might deem that maybe as a little bit more than just slapping somebody, but after watching it on film, it was a take foul. That’s how I saw it. And the play after, that’s just absolutely uncalled for.”
Meanwhile, a photo—shared by Denver-based journalist and photographer Aaron Ontiveroz—showed Heat players waiting to confront Nuggets players after the game, with only one person standing in their way.
The image sparked a plethora of jokes on social media, for the perceived fake toughness on behalf of the heat. Check out some notable reactions to the striking image below.
