The Miami Heat and the New York Knicks have had plenty of battles over the years that have led to tensions boiling over between the two teams. While things didn’t quite get to the level of some of the more notorious moments in the history of this rivalry, a handful of technical fouls got handed out late in the third quarter of Game 3 in Miami on Saturday afternoon.
Immanuel Quickley went for a runner and made it, all while a few players bumped into each other under the rim. Cody Zeller didn’t appreciate how Julius Randle was going about his business, which led to the Heat veteran shoving the Knicks All-Star in the back and shoving him to the ground. This led to some more pushing and shoving, with Isaiah Hartenstein going after Zeller and Cody Martin getting his teammate back.
Knicks-Heat getting chippy
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— ESPN (@espn) May 6, 2023
Erik Spoelstra made a beeline over to the kerfuffle to get Martin and pull him out of there, while Tom Thibodeau eventually made his way over into the fracas, mostly to make sure everything was cool. By the time the dust settled, the officials determined that Hartenstein, Martin, and Zeller all deserved to get hit with a technical for this. We’ll have to wait until later in this series to see if things get so nasty between the teams that Thibodeau grabs onto someone’s leg.