Doc Rivers says NBA must address teams goading star players

NEW YORK — Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers gave an impassioned speech Friday in defense of Joel Embiid's kick at Brooklyn Nets center Nic Claxton, saying the NBA needs to do something about teams trying to goad star players into retaliatory actions during games.

«I'm gonna say this, and I probably shouldn't: I didn't think Draymond [Green] should have been suspended,» Rivers said Friday, referring to the Golden State Warriors star's suspension for stomping on Sacramento Kings' Domantas Sabonis. «And I think the league is setting up a very dangerous precedent right now, and this is not me campaigning, and I'm dead serious.

»… If we're going to start punishing the retaliators, and not the instigators, then we've got a problem in this league."

Embiid kicked at Claxton after the Nets center stood over him less than three minutes into Game 3, with Embiid being hit with a flagrant foul on the play and Claxton getting a technical foul for taunting his opponent.

Claxton would later get a second technical — and with it an ejection — for taunting Embiid after a dunk early in the fourth quarter.

Philadelphia's other superstar, James Harden, was hit with a flagrant foul 2, which comes with an automatic ejection, for a hit to the groin area of Nets forward Royce O'Neale late in the third quarter.

A league spokesperson told ESPN on Friday that both Harden and Embiid's fouls will stand as called, and that neither will receive any further discipline from the league. As a result, Harden has two flagrant foul points moving forward, and Embiid has one. When a player accumulates four flagrant foul points in the playoffs, it results in an automatic one-game suspension.

That, however, will only serve as so much of a deterrent in the eyes