In the middle of the fourth quarter of the Milwaukee Bucks‘ showdown with the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday night, the exciting back-and-forth game took a frightening turn when Khris Middleton was ejected for a flagrant two foul on Bruce Brown.
With just over five minutes to play, Giannis Antetokounmpo started driving towards the basket, then pulled up and tried to drop a pass off to Jrue Holiday. Instead it went straight to Brown, who took off the other way on what was initially a solo fastbreak. For some reason, Brown began to slow down as he approached the basket, which gave Middleton a chance to catch up.
Middleton was still a step behind, however, and reached out for a foul as Brown rose to the rim. While he didn’t hit Brown with much force, and clearly wasn’t intending to hurt him, Middleton did briefly grab ahold of the crook of his elbow. That was all it took to send Brown crashing to the ground in dangerous fashion.
After a brief review the referees upgraded Middleton’s foul to a flagrant two, and he was ejected. Brown, thankfully, did not appear to be injured and was able to remain in the game.
