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Michael Jordan clarifies why he slapped Malik Monk

Utkarsh Bhatla
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Michael Jordan’s emotions were on display in Hornets’ win against the Pistons last night, as the game ended 108-107, with the Hornets hanging by a thread in the last 0.3 seconds.

Jeremy Lamb’s 22 foot jumper had meant that the Hornets were 108-106 up with 0.3 seconds on the clock, but a moment of madness on Malik Monk’s part meant that a technical was awarded to the Hornets player and Pistons had a slight chance of winnin the game.

While that didn’t quite transpire, Monk did give every Hornet fan quite the jitters.

Michael Jordan too was upset by what Monk had done, running onto the court to celebrate that ‘game winner’ from Lamb, despite there being no time-out.

Pistons knocked down that free throw but were not able to win the game in the remaining 0.3 seconds, much to the delight of the Jordan and Monk.

Jordan wanted Monk to understand what he had just done and thus gave him a slap on the back of his head, letting him know that he had not kept his head and it could have cost his team dearly.

Check out the video:

Jordan was later asked about his little tap on the back on Monk’s head and Jordan clarified that there was no malicious intent in that tap and was only a touch of love.

“It was like a big brother and little brother tap,” Jordan told the AP via text message.

“No negative intent. Only love!” he added.

Monk too spoke about the little interaction between himself and Jordan, saying that with Mike any and everything is going to make the news.

“Big, big, big brother,” Monk said.

“But it was nothing. He was just playing.

“It’s Mike, and whatever he does is going to make (news) because nowadays it’s all social media and everybody has their phone out there and I wasn’t surprised.” he added.

Monk then went onto speak about his celebration and how it wasn’t very different to what other players do during league games.

“If they call that they have to call every single one of them,” Monk explained.

“Everybody celebrates and has a foot on the court. We won. I’m glad we got the W.” he added.

Borrego understood why Monk reacted in that way, as Hornets hadn’t been in a similar situation all season and a brilliant jumper brought some emotion out of the players.

However, he emphasised that Monk and the Hornets will need to learn from this incident.

“You got to remember there is still .3 on the clock,” Borrego said.

“We have not been in that situation where we made a shot like that and I think there was excitement there. A natural response, right? But you’ve got to react the right way. We will learn from it and won’t let that happen again.” he concluded.

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