Austin Rivers Loved Seeing His Dad Doc Get Ejected

In Thursday’s Hot Clicks: A little Rivers family beef, Manti Te’o has a real girlfriend and more.

Happy holidays, Rivers family

ESPN

Doc and Austin Rivers have a complex relationship. Austin grew up in Florida (where the family settled while Doc coached the Magic) but his dad was mostly up in Boston coaching Celtics. Doc was also Austin’s boss for four years with the Clippers—until he traded his son away to the Wizards in 2018. 

Things got a little more complicated last night in Houston, though in a good-natured way.

Austin’s Rockets played host to Doc’s Clippers in a game Houston won 102–93 behind a 47-point performance from James Harden. It was a hard-fought game that came to a boil in the final minutes when Doc got in a shouting match with the officials. 

Rivers was upset with referee Tony Brothers over a discrepancy in the number of timeouts he had remaining. He berated Brothers while Austin stood nearby, begging to Brothers to issue his father a technical foul. 

Doc got two techs, actually, and was sent to the locker room early. As his father walked to the tunnel, Austin taunted him by waving and telling him to call him. He even egged the crowd on as it jeered Doc. 

Austin clearly loved the whole moment.

“I did,” Austin said with a smile when asked if he enjoyed seeing his dad get T’d up. “I knew it was coming. I could see it. I’ve seen that look before—many times. Once he starts blinking his eyes fast, and he starts [imitates Doc getting mad], that’s when I know he is about to level up. So I just started telling Tony to get him. They got him. He’s out of here.”

After the game, Austin had a fantastic tweet about the incident. 

Welp.... thanksgiving is going to be weird....

— Austin Rivers (@AustinRivers25) November 14, 2019

He also posted on Instagram and Doc hopped in the comments. 

They won’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to smooth things over, though. The Rockets are coming to L.A. to play the Clippers next Friday. 

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Manti Te’o has a real girlfriend now

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One of the dirtiest hits you’ll ever see

Yep, that's about as textbook as it gets for targeting.

Terrance Taylor will be ejected for this game and the first half of Toledo's next game. pic.twitter.com/BFLj1IraTd

— Hustle Belt (@HustleBelt) November 14, 2019

Quite the fancy in-game snack

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Professional basketball player

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to seeprevious editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.