THE PBA Commissioner's Office fined TnT Katropa Terrence Jones for P20,000 after upgrading his headbutt on San Miguel Beer guard Chris Ross to a flagrant foul penalty 2.
The call was elevated following a thorough video review made by the league's technical committee of Game 3 of the Commissioner's Cup Finals on Saturday morning.
The temperamental former Houston Rocket was assessed a flagrant foul penalty 1 on the floor which only merited a mandatory three-minute benching.
As it is, the prolific import could have been outright ejected had an F2 been immediately called on him at the 5:51 mark of the first period when the incident happened.
Instead, Jones stayed and came an assist short of completing a triple double as the Katropa claimed a 115-105 win for a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven title series.
TnT coach Bong Ravena admitted the Katropa tried to talk out Jones to keep his cool and stay focus on the task at hand,
"Sinabihan namin siya (Jones) to stay focus, be patient, and don't lose your head," said Ravena.
Apart from Jones, also penalized was San Miguel sophomore Christian Standhardinger.
A fine of P5,000 was meted on the 6-foot-7 Fil-German for his flagrant foul penalty one against Jones.
Ross, who was whistled for a technical foul for taunting Jones before the headbutting incident, was vocal in saying the TnT import should have been tossed out of the game.
“A headbutt is a headbutt, that’s above the head and that was on purpose,” said the veteran guard after the game.
“And he only got an F1 for that? I think he probably should have been ejected.”
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