Brothers jump into fray on Twitter

The fallout from Monday night’s fracas between Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Miami’s Markieff Morris spilled into Tuesday morning as both sets of brothers of the players involved levied social media threats at the other.

Marcus Morris, a forward for the Los Angeles Clippers, tweeted “Waited till bro turned his back smh. NOTED.”

The insinuation was that when Jokic retaliated last night late in the fourth quarter at Ball Arena, leveling Markieff, he waited until he wasn’t looking.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra suggested the same.

“It’s just absolutely uncalled for, and it would have looked a lot different, this whole thing could have been a lot uglier if Markieff was actually facing Jokic,” Spoelstra said. “The fact that he had his back turned, and he made a play like that, blindsiding, it was just a very dangerous play.”

Jokic’s brothers created a Twitter account on Tuesday morning to respond to Marcus’ message.

“You should leave this the way it is instead of publicly threatening our brother! Your brother made a dirty play first. If you want to make a step further be sure we will be waiting for you !! Jokic Brothers.”

Following a lengthy review, Jokic was ejected and Morris was assessed a flagrant 2. An NBA pool report said that Morris’ ejection was, in part, because his action provoked a further altercation.

Spoelstra called it a routine “take foul,” even though Morris threw his weight into Jokic’s right side, knocking knees with the MVP.

“That’s how I saw it,” Spoelstra said.

It was a dirty play, according to

Jokic, and prompted his retaliation. But Jokic was remorseful when he met with the media Monday night.

“It’s a stupid play,” he said. “I feel bad.”

After the game ended, Heat players waited in the hallway outside their locker room, not far from the Nuggets’ locker room. Miami forward Jimmy Butler yelled down the hallway, telling Nuggets players they know where Miami’s bus was parked.