Dillon Brooks’ first game with the Houston Rockets proved costly.
The NBA on Thursday fined Brooks $25,000 for “recklessly making contact” with Indiana Pacers center Daniel Theis in the groin area on Tuesday, leading to his ejection during the preseason game .
Brooks was ejected 4:33 into his first game with the Rockets, with whom he signed as a free agent this offseason, for flagrant foul 2 on Theis.
Brooks said after the Rockets’ victory that he did not intend to hit Theis and attributed the ejection to his reputation.
“I tried to navigate on a screen,” Brooks said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “I maybe tapped him below the waist. But he got up. I don’t know. It’s weird that every time it happens to me, I get harassed. I guess that’s part of it reputation.
“For a flagrant 2 foul like that, you have to know if a person is doing it on purpose or intentionally. It really depends on who I am as a person. This referee, Mitch [Ervin] , it just shows that he just doesn’t know who I am as a person. It simply deviates from what was said.”
