“For Saying Wake Up”: Josh Hart Takes to Social Media to Discuss Technical Foul Against the Thunder

The New York Knicks saw their nine-game win streak come to an end tonight, unable to hold onto a 14-point lead against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite the 107-117 loss, the matchup against the Western Conference leaders witnessed plenty of highlights. However, the most talked-about incident was Josh Hart receiving a technical foul for a trivial reason.

During the postgame locker room interview, Hart revealed being dumbfounded by the official’s decision to penalize him with a technical foul for screaming, “wake up”.

“It’s always great playing here because the crowds is great. Some of the refs… that’s for y’all to look at that. You know, that’s what y’all look at. I don’t understand. I got a technical foul for saying wake up though,” Hart seemed confused.

The swingman wasn’t done questioning the technical foul call just yet. He even took to X, responding to The Athletic’s James L. Edwards’ tweet, which highlighted that Hart has received a technical foul in each of the last three games officiated by Ben Taylor.

“Lol my tech today was for saying “Wake up”, while running back on defense,” Hart wrote.

Social media users support Hart

Josh Hart’s social media activity became viral in no time. More than 264k X users viewed the tweet merely an hour after the contest at the Paycom Center concluded.

A majority of the users stood up for Hart, implying that the technical foul was not warranted. Some even criticized the officiating standards and pinpointed it as a reason for the decline in the league’s viewership.

User @KingBacca22x shared an old clip of Fred VanVleet calling out Ben Taylor with some choice words, highlighting how the referee has faced criticism from many NBA players.

Despite this setback, the 29-year-old has had an incredible series of performances lately, averaging 18.5 points and 13.3 rebounds in the last four NYK wins.