NBA Announces Fine After Nuggets vs. Raptors

The Denver Nuggets defeated the Toronto Raptors on Monday night to keep pace with the rest of the top teams in the Western Conference.

Trying to run down the first seed, Denver has been playing some great basketball, and sits just a half game back of the OKC Thunder for the top spot in the West.

Following Monday night’s win over the Raptors, the NBA announced that Raptors forward Kelly Olynyk had been fined $2,000 for a flopping violation.

The play came with 7:19 left in the first quarter when Olynyk tried to draw an offensive foul on Nikola Jokic. The flop was so blatant that the officials did not call anything on the play, and Olynyk has since been fined $2,000.

The flop can be viewed here.

The NBA has been cracking down on flopping violations this season, which is the right move.

Officiating is difficult, and players flopping makes it even more difficult for them to make accurate rulings in real time.

The game moves very fast, which can make it tough to distinguish between excessive contact and a flop, which is why the NBA is trying to legislate it out of the game.

For Olynyk, he has no real case against this ruling, as the play was clearly a flop. There was minimal contact on the play, if any, and Olynyk threw himself to the floor.