Suns' Jared Dudley, Marquese Chriss ejected after cheap shots on Ricky Rubio

The Phoenix Suns are, once again, one of the worst teams in the NBA. They’re closing in on a third straight sub-25 win season, with nothing to play for but ping-pong balls and what passes for pride. When a team’s dismal, desperate and utterly defeated, dumb stuff can happen. It happened midway through the third quarter of the Suns’ Thursday night matchup with the Utah Jazz.

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With just over seven minutes remaining in the third and the Jazz holding a 19-point lead, Suns scorer Devin Booker drove left around a screen from big man Marquese Chriss, who took a pocket pass and elevated for a dunk, only to come up well short — due in part to a right forearm shove by center Rudy Gobert — and wind up tossing the ball out of bounds before crashing on the baseline. Jazz point guard Ricky Rubio hopped over the fallen Chriss, looking to get the ball from the official and get it inbounded quickly. After he did, Suns forward Jared Dudley just planted his feet and decided to get his Jeff Teague on, trucking Rubio as he was bringing the ball up the floor.

Rubio went careening to his right, nearly losing his feet before skidding to a stop. As soon as he did, he turned and got right in Dudley’s face. While he was doing that, Chriss inserted himself in the situation, coming up from Rubio’s blindside and shoving him; Rubio hit an onrushing referee, and then he hit the floor.

And then, things got interesting.

Jazz swingman Jae Crowder immediately came to Rubio’s defense, pushing Chriss and keeping a hand on Dudley. Joe Ingles came running in from the backcourt, hurdled Rubio, fought through Suns interim coach Jay Triano and shoved Chriss before another coach could wrap him up and steer him clear of the fray. Players, coaches and officials all converged for some good ol’ fashioned NBA pushing and shoving. It was a scene, man.

After the refs got everybody separated and sorted things out, they hit Dudley with a flagrant foul-2 for unnecessary and excessive contact on the first hit on Rubio, prompting Dudley’s immediate ejection; a technical and ejection for Chriss for the second hit on Rubio; and technical fouls on both Ingles and rookie Donovan Mitchell for rushing into the pile.

In the moment, that seemed like a pretty lousy result for the Jazz, considering Dudley and Chriss basically did all the dirty work:

In the grand scheme, of course, it didn’t really matter. The Jazz just patiently resumed beating the hell out of the Suns, finishing off a 116-88 stomping behind six players in double figures, led by Mitchell (23 points, six rebounds, four assists, one steal, one block) and Gobert (21 points, 13 rebounds, two blocks, two assists). In his first action of the season after October shoulder surgery, guard Dante Exum kicked in 10 points, three rebounds and two assists in 14 1/2 minutes off the bench for Utah, which has now won a scorching 20 of its last 22 games to improve to 39-30, good for seventh place in the West and just 1 1/2 games out of fourth. With the loss, the Suns drop to Who Cares, Really?

After the game, Dudley offered a sort of “shrug it off” explanation for what went down:

Dudley’s point of view aside, the smart money would be on additional discipline coming from the league office tomorrow, especially for Chriss, whose blindside hit seemed like it merited more than just a technical. Whatever the case, we should thank heaven for the small mercy of this particular squabble not getting any worse. After all, once a large bear puts on a pair of boxing gloves, there’s really no telling how wild things are about to get.

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Dan Devine is a writer and editor for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@oath.com or follow him on Twitter!

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