A report from the US Airways Center in Phoenix, where the Clippers faced the Suns on January 2nd.Late in the fourth quarter of the Suns' 106-98 victory over the Clippers, Matt Barnes picked up his second technical foul of the night, which of course, is an automatic ejection. He was arguing with the official over a foul call -- just his first of the night -- when he said something disagreeable that caused him to get tossed.
For Barnes, it was his second ejection of the season, and for the Suns, it was the second straight game where one of their players got kicked out for arguing with the refs -- Amare Stoudemire lasted just 11 minutes in Memphis.
Barnes ducked out before the media could talk to him about what happened, but I did see him in the tunnel talking to Baron Davis afterwards. Baron joked that Barnes "needed to keep his mouth shut," and then Barnes went on to tell Baron exactly what he said to the official to pick up that second technical foul.
"All I said to him was, 'that other ref has been [messing] with me all night,'" Barnes said. As I mentioned, Barnes only was called for the one personal foul, so unless he was peeved at a series of no-calls, it's tough to see why he was so agitated -- especially with his team up by 20 points at the time.
Since Barnes wasn't available to the media after the game, the team's other expert in the ejection department was asked about what's going on with the team as far as their issue with the officials. Here's what Amare had to say about it.
"I tell you what, ejections are starting to be a little contagious," Stoudemire said. "I was trying to be the peacemaker tonight! It didn't quite work too well, but ... I gotta laugh 'em off at times just to keep my composure, because half the time I don't think it's a foul call. But officials sometimes have a better look than I do, plus I'm in the heat of the battle. Eighty percent of the time players are gonna always say that it's not a foul call when maybe, it really is."
When told that Barnes had now tied him for the league lead in ejections with two (Rip Hamilton is a member of that club as well), Amare said simply, "the league lead! Well, they call me 'Start-a-Fire. Amare Start-a-Fire."
Maybe the fact that the Suns' last two games were against two of the league's bottom dwellers is what contributed to Stoudemire's and Barnes' free-spirited discussions with the officials.
Amare's came in the second quarter of a game where the team was already without Steve Nash due to back spasms, and had they somehow dropped that one to the Grizzlies, I'm guessing that he and the rest of the team wouldn't have found his "fire starting" quite as amusing.
As for Barnes, well, same thing. It seemed completely unnecessary to go after the official with the Suns up 20 and under five minutes left in the game. But it's possible I suppose that Barnes really felt wronged by the officiating crew all night, and felt that hey, the game's in hand so I'm going to let him have it. Which is fine. As long as he -- and Stoudemire -- know to keep their opinions to themselves in closer games against the more quality opponents.
