Late in the Sixers’ 105-97 loss to the Orlando Magic on Saturday night, it was apparent that they missed Nerlens Noel on the defensive end of the floor. Unfortunately for them, their top rim protector wasn’t available.
#FormerSixer Jason Smith has this Joakim Noah-y thing about him where it’s obvious that he prides himself on being a pain in the you-know-what to play against. Annoying for the sake of annoying, essentially. Late in the third quarter, Smith goaded Noel into taking a swing (though even that is up for interpretation), for which Noel received a Flagrant 2.
As you can see in the video below, Noel took out his frustration on a few things (a chair, perhaps?) on the way to the locker room. If this were baseball, he would have went to town on a water cooler with a bat:
“It was a tough call,” Noel said after the game. “It didn’t go the way I expected it, but [the officials] get paid to do what they do. It was just a tough call.”
The way Noel described it after the game, he made it seem like the move in question was his natural reaction to taking a shot to the chest.
"I got hit in my ribs, so I tried to do the smartest thing I could. I reacted, but I pulled away, being a smart player and knowing my team needed me in."
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