The Hawks expressed frustration over a physical-taunting technical foul called on Hawks center Dwight Howard in Tuesday’s 131-120 loss to the Magic.
Howard was called for the rare infraction after he grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled as he positioned himself for a put-back basket.
With 7:54 left in the fourth quarter, Tim Hardaway Jr. missed a 3-point attempt, and Howard got the rebound. From the right, Jeff Green hit Howard across the arms and was called for a foul. From the left, Howard brought the ball down slightly, moved it to the side and his elbow connected with the face of Bismack Biyombo.
After a lengthy review and discussion of the play, referee Ken Mauer ruled the Howard be given a technical for the blow to Biyombo.
“It’s frustrating,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. “Dwight is working on a lot of things to keep the ball up high, to finish quicker, a lot of fundamental things. The official’s explanation was that he had to call a technical for contact to the head. I’ll have to look at it. It felt like Dwight just kept his hands up, went to finish and caught somebody trying to play defense on him. We’ll have to review it.
“It’s a frustrating call because Dwight’s been working on exactly kind of what happened in practice and to be penalized for it is frustrating.”
Howard also said he was just trying to keep the ball high above his head. He added there was no intent.
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Howard said. “We were always taught to keep the ball high. The one time I did it, I got called for a technical foul. I just caught the ball high, tried to keep it away from the defense. I did not mean to elbow Biyombo.
“Hopefully, I don’t get called (from the NBA) about it because it wasn’t intentional. I was just trying to lay the ball up and score. That’s all.”
Green made the technical free throw to put the Magic up by 11 points, 111-110. Howard made one of his two attempts.
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