NBA fines Morris for grab, Butler, Heat for obscene gesture

Miami Heat forwards Jimmy Butler and Markieff Morris and the club itself were fined Thursday by the NBA for violations committed in a playoff series-clinching home victory Tuesday over Atlanta.

In both cases, the players involved were on the bench when they incurred the league's wrath. Morris was in uniform but didn't play while Butler was out with right knee inflammation.

Morris was fined $25,000 for interfering with game play while on the bench.

Butler was fined $15,000 for making a hip-thrusting obscene gesture and the team was fined the same amount for posting it on social media. Morris grabbed and held Atlanta guard De'Andre Hunter out of bounds, preventing Hunter from reestablishing himself inbounds as he caught a pass from a teammate.

Morris received an unsportsmanlike technical foul for his grab, which came with 7:06 remaining in the third quarter.

Butler's incident came with 1:43 remaining in the second quarter.

Miami's 97-94 home playoff victory over the Hawks on Tuesday gave the Heat a 4-1 victory in their first-round series and a berth in the second round against either the Philadelphia 76ers or Toronto Raptors.

The Heat went 53-29 during the season to earn the top seed spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs and will have a homecourt edge in the conference semi-final series, which opens at Miami on Monday.

Defending champion Milwaukee will face the Boston Celtics in the other Eastern Conference semi-final series.

Butler, 32, averaged 21.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.5 assists a game in the regular season. Morris, 32, helped the Los Angeles Lakers to the 2020 NBA crown. He averaged 7.6 points, 5.6 points and 1.6 assists a game this season.

Tokyo shares closed lower on Wednesday, extending a rout on Wall Street where fears grew over a global economic slowdown. The Nikkei 225 index, which dipped more than two percent in the morning, ended down 1.17 percent or 313.48 points to end at 26,386.63, while the broader Topix index fell 0.94 percent, or 17.75 points, to 1,860.76.

The dollar stood at 127.90 yen, against 127.21 yen in New York late Tuesday.

"The Nikkei index opened lower after the three major US indices fell sharply last night," Okasan Online Securities said. "A wide range of stocks, especially tech shares, were sold in the afternoon."