Technical Foul - Notable Instances

Notable Instances

One of the most famous technical fouls ever assessed was called on Chris Webber of the University of Michigan late in the 1993 NCAA championship game. Down by two points to North Carolina with only seconds remaining, Webber called a timeout when Michigan had no timeouts left. The resulting excessive timeout technical foul, for which North Carolina guard Donald Williams made both foul shots, ended any hopes Michigan had of claiming the championship.

In what has been called the greatest game ever played, Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals between the Phoenix Suns and Boston Celtics, the Suns found themselves one point down with one second left in double overtime, no timeouts remaining and possession of the ball under their defensive basket after a John Havlicek bucket. Faced with the near-impossibility of sinking an 80-foot desperation shot, Suns guard Paul Westphal hit upon an unusual solution. He intentionally called a timeout the Suns did not have. While this gave the Celtics a free throw, which Jo Jo White successfully converted to increase the lead to two, it gave the Suns possession at halfcourt, and enabled Gar Heard to sink an 18-footer as time expired to force a third overtime. NBA rules were changed the following year to prevent a repeat occurrence.

An instance where many technical fouls could have been called, but were not (instead, the game was abandoned, a remedy available to the officials when too many players would have or have been disqualified or ejected for the game to continue, or when a team continually commits technical fouls in order to make a travesty of proceedings), was the Pacers–Pistons brawl involving players and spectators on November 19, 2004, in an NBA game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons. Ron Artest of the Pacers and Ben Wallace of the Pistons began scuffling after Artest fouled Wallace hard. This escalated into a brawl where players from both teams became involved, and grew worse after Artest retreated to the scorer's table and was hit by a cup thrown by a spectator. Artest and several teammates and opponents then ran into the stands and fought with fans. Had technical fouls been formally assessed, the result would likely have been the ejection of both teams' entire squads. In the end, nine players were suspended for a total of 146 games, including Artest for the remainder of the season.

In a 2007 game against the Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio's Tim Duncan was charged a technical foul by referee Joe Crawford for laughing at him while sitting on the bench ("gesturing in such a manner as to indicate resentment," as indicated above). As he had already picked up a technical foul on the previous play, also while sitting on the bench, this led to his ejection. Upon further review it was determined that this technical foul was inconsistent with the league's game management, and NBA commissioner David Stern suspended Crawford for the rest of the season. Duncan was fined $25,000 for the incident.

The most technical fouls ever charged to a team in a single professional game is 6 (all in the second half), to Aris Thessaloniki in a game against Olympiacos of the Greek A1 League on February 10, 2008.

Rasheed Wallace holds the record for the most technical fouls received during one season in the NBA. In the 2000-01 season, he received 41 technical fouls in 80 regular season and postseason games played. Wallace also holds the all-time mark for most technical fouls by a player in a career with 304, a record previously held by Dennis Rodman.