Makur Maker Ejected as Adelaide-Illawarra Brawl Spills Into the Hawks' Bench

Makur Maker was ejected from a game his team was already losing by 27 points, and the ejection, not the score, is the story. Adelaide beat Illawarra 106-78 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday, but the night will be remembered for the fourth-quarter brawl that spilled into the Hawks’ bench with 3:51 left. Maker, Nick Rakocevic and Will Hickey all received technical fouls, and only Maker was thrown out, after the officials added a flagrant foul for his part in the scuffle. Illawarra coach Justin Tatum held onto Rakocevic himself as the melee rolled toward his bench, then argued after the game that the wrong man had been ejected.

What happened in the fourth quarter?

A push, a shove, and then a bench. With Adelaide leading by 27 late in the final term, Rakocevic pushed Maker under the 36ers’ basket after the ball went out of bounds, AAP reports. Hickey then shoved Rakocevic in the chest, and the scuffle grew into a full-team melee that spilled into the Hawks’ bench. Tatum ended up holding onto Rakocevic while Maker was still being pursued and held back, and the officials sorted it out with three technical fouls plus a flagrant foul and an ejection for Maker. The NBL’s own account, quoted by AAP, confirms the split: Rakocevic, Hickey and Maker all got technicals, and Maker also copped the flagrant. The commentary caught the mood in one line, with John Casey saying on the broadcast that this was getting out of hand and that the game did not need it.

Why was only Maker ejected?

Because the officials judged his retaliation as the extra offence. That is the whole of the dispute, and it is why Tatum’s complaint has a shape to it rather than just heat. The push that started it came from Rakocevic, and Tatum said so plainly after the game: as soon as the ball went out of bounds, Rakocevic clearly pushed Maker in the back, and anybody will react to getting pushed in the back. What the officials saw differently was what Maker did next, chasing Rakocevic as the scuffle moved toward the bench, which drew the second technical and the unsportsmanlike call that ended his night. Tatum said the team was still trying to work out where the unsportsmanlike foul was, and that there was no way Maker should have got two technicals and been kicked out while Adelaide shot four free throws and kept the ball. It is the same kind of one-sided ledger that has produced ejection arguments elsewhere this season, from Joel Embiid’s retroactive flagrant for kicking Cade Cunningham to Dre Greenlaw’s ejection for headbutting a helmetless opponent, where the punishment lands on the retaliation rather than the first shove.

What kind of night was Maker having?

A bad one, and the ejection was the end of it rather than the start. Maker finished scoreless with four turnovers before finally troubling the scorers, AAP reports, and then being booted out. That is a miserable line for a big man, and it makes the frustration legible even without excusing it. The contrast sharpens it further: Maker had been outstanding in Illawarra’s win in Cairns 48 hours earlier, so this was a collapse from a high, not a continuation of a slump. He was the only Hawk who did not reach double figures alongside a team where Kelan Martin’s seven points were next best, while Tyler Harvey’s 19 was the lone bright spot and even that came mostly in the first half. A scoreless night, four turnovers and an ejection is the kind of game a player wants to forget, and the ejection guarantees it will be the game everyone else remembers.

What did the rest of the game look like?

A blowout with a triple-double, a shooting clinic and a debut, before the brawl swallowed all three. Zylan Cheatham recorded the first triple-double of the NBL season with 21 points, 11 rebounds and a career-high 11 assists, Fox Sports Australia reports, and Bryce Cotton shook off a quiet first half, four points on 1-of-9 shooting, to pour in 17 in the third term on his way to 22. Rakocevic paired 20 points with 16 boards, John Jenkins went 5-of-5 from three in the first half, and Adelaide finished 14-of-29 from deep at 48 per cent while committing eight turnovers to Illawarra’s 17. The one-way nature of it continued into the final term, which finished with 16-year-old Raheim Brown Jr stepping in for his NBL debut and splashing a three on the full-time siren. There was even a second oddity before the brawl: the game was stopped for several minutes in the second quarter when Todd Blanchfield’s missed triple bounced behind the backboard and dislodged the broadcast camera, and play only restarted after a ladder was found and the camera put back in place.

What does this mean for the NBL’s week?

It gives the league a second officiating flashpoint in the same week, and the two cases rhyme. Melbourne United guard Cole Anthony is already under investigation by the NBL and Basketball Australia over referee outbursts in two games, and now a coach is publicly disputing an ejection call while his player sits out the rest of a blowout. The standings add context rather than comfort: Adelaide, seventh-ranked at 5-6, had just one more win than last-placed Illawarra going in, and this was the 36ers’ biggest win in a hot-and-cold first season under Trevor Gleeson. The gap in class was evident from the second quarter on, and the brawl arrived only after the result had been settled for half an hour, which is why it reads as frustration boiling over rather than a game turning on a call. The comparison that fits best is not a basketball one at all: two players were ejected on the opening kickoff in London last month, and the story there was also the officials’ split, who went and who stayed, rather than the score.

What happens next?

The league’s inbox, and then the road. No suspension or fine had been announced for anyone involved in the scuffle at the time of writing, and the NBL’s next move is the open question this article will track. Adelaide is back in action on Thursday night when Melbourne United visit the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, which puts the Anthony investigation and the Maker ejection in the same building within a week. Illawarra’s hectic road trip continues with games at South East Melbourne and a return to Perth before the Hawks head home, and Saturday’s game was their third in five road games in 15 days, a schedule Tatum’s side can point to even if it explains nothing about the brawl. The immediate thread to follow is Tatum’s complaint, because a coach saying on the record that his player should not have been ejected, and that the other man should have gone too, is the kind of comment the league usually answers, either with a fine or with silence.