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Lakers Upset With Ridiculous Ejections, While Rockets Admit Calls Were ‘Soft’

Referee James Williams has now made his presence felt in two first rounds series.
Stephen Douglas|
Marcus Smart tried to have a word with James Williams after Game 4.
Marcus Smart tried to have a word with James Williams after Game 4. | Peacoc

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Houston RocketsLos Angeles Lakers

The Rockets staved off elimination on Sunday night with a 115-96 win over the Lakers in Game 4 of their Western Conference first round series. Houston pulled away in the third quarter and the game was pretty much a dud until the referees got involved, much to the delight of all the fans.

Midway through the third quarter Deandre Ayton hit Alperen Şengün in the head with an elbow. A foul was called and the play was reviewed, as is any play where someone gets hit in the head. After watching the replay, which pretty clearly showed there was no intent and Ayton's arm just slipped as he was bracing for contact and accidentally caught a crouching Şengün in the side of the head, referee James Williams announced that it was "unnecessary and excessive" and ejected the Lakers' center.

Considering it was a 19-point game at the time, maybe this was an attempt by the officiating crew to keep things from getting out of control. And that's why you throw out a guy like Ayton who has zero history of this kind of stuff. Message sent.

Or at least it seemed that way until the next set of ejections in the fourth quarter.

With a little more than a minute to play Rockets guard Aaron Holiday got a little too physical boxing out Lakers rookie Adou Thiero. As the two players were separated without much resistance from either party an irritated Williams again stepped in and tossed both players.

You could debate Holiday's actions here to start things, but there was no debate. Williams didn't go to the monitor to review anything. He just threw two confused players out of the game without hesitation.

As the game ended the broadcast noted Marcus Smart was getting into it with Tari Eason, but it looked more like he was yelling at Williams as the Lakers pulled him away.

When players and coaches spoke to the media later, the officiating did not receive high marks.

JJ Redick was calm, but it was pretty clear that he disagreed with both ejections. He had no idea why Adou was tossed, but mentioned that Williams would explain what happened. As for Ayton, he said he had a "sweet, just like kind soul" and insisted it wasn't dirty.

LeBron James was less tactful saying the Adou ejection pissed him off and was "ridiculous."

As for the Rockets point of view, they thought the Ayton ejection was "soft." While coach Ime Udoka said it "looked intentional," he admitted he was surprised by the ejection and Şengün also noted that the ejection was a "little bit soft."

James Williams is really having himself quite a postseason. Last week he was called out by name in a press conference by Devin Booker after some truly horrendous calls in a Suns-Thunder playoff game. Calls that were so bad in retrospect that the NBA rescinded Booker's technical foul in the same press release where they announced he was being fined for public criticism of an official.

It's pretty impressive to have three different teams over two series telling the media what a bad job you're doing.

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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.

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