Anthony Edwards was in no mood for Jarred Vanderbilt’s antics during Thursday’s game.
At the end of the first quarter of Thursday’s Minnesota Timberwolves-Los Angeles Lakers game, the Minnesota star Edwards got into a shoving match with the Lakers big Vanderbilt as the two teams were headed to their respective benches. The two players were talking to each other, leading to Vanderbilt coming over and bumping Edwards.
Edwards then responded with a one-handed shove to the back of Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt retaliated with a one-handed shove of his own before the two were separated. As a result, both Edwards and Vanderbilt were hit with double technical fouls. Here is the video.
Another angle showed a wider view of the incident.
The Lakers were leading 33-17 at the time and ended up taking a 58-47 lead into halftime. Thus, Edwards, who finished the half with a modest 13 points, was clearly a little irritable there.
The problem here for the three-time All-Star Edwards is that the technical foul marked his 15th of the NBA season. He is now just one technical foul away from an automatic one-game suspension.
Minnesota has underwhelmed this season and entered play on Thursday at 32-27 (tied for seventh in the West). Any games that Edwards, who has already been disciplined by the NBA multiple times this season for unrelated reasons, would have to miss due to suspension could end up being very costly for the Timberwolves in their race to make the playoffs outright and avoid the play-in tournament.
