Tuesday’s game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Memphis Grizzlies gave us something we don’t see a lot of: a player vs. coach conflict.
Late in the first half, Minnesota coach Chris Finch was standing on the sideline in front of his bench when Desmond Bane went to go inbound a ball for Memphis. Bane gave Finch a light push, which Finch reacted to by swatting Bane’s hands away. While it didn’t amount to much in the way of a fight, the contact was enough to earn Bane a technical foul.
Desmond Bane lightly shoved Wolves' coach Chris Finch. 👀
(via @BallySportsNOR)pic.twitter.com/89vXByKLRD
— Bally Sports (@BallySports) April 27, 2022
As Jeff Van Gundy would no doubt attest, players and coaches can sometimes get physical when a coach is trying to break up a fight between players. On occasion, they’ll bicker about each other to the media between games in a playoff series. But none of that was at play here. This was just an unusual situation.
But this is a series that has seen multiple games interrupted by protesters. Nothing about it has been normal. If anything, abnormal activity has been par for the course in this series.
With at least one more game remaining between the two teams on Friday night, there’s only one question to ask. What’s next?
