Clippers' Marcus Morris denies that he intentionally stepped on Luka Doncic's injured ankle

Liz Roscher
·Staff writer
Updated ·4-min read

The Los Angeles Clippers soundly beat the Dallas Mavericks 154-111 on Tuesday night, but Game 5 had more drama than just the Clippers finding themselves and taking a 3-2 lead in the series.

In the third quarter, the Clippers’ Marcus Morris stepped on Luka Doncic’s sprained left ankle. Doncic fell onto the floor and his left shoe came off.

Intentionally stepping on a player’s injured ankle is pretty dirty, but was it intentional? It’s not clear. Morris appeared to take an extra gallop forward before planting his foot on Doncic’s ankle. However, it doesn’t really look like Morris was watching where he was stepping, and he also appeared to reach out for Doncic as he fell down. Morris himself also lost his balance as a result of the ankle step.

Doncic didn’t seem convinced that it was accidental when he spoke to the media after the game, but he wouldn’t commit either way, only saying that he hoped it wasn’t intentional.

Morris denies he intentionally stepped on Doncic’s ankle

There’s clearly no love lost between Doncic and Morris, but Morris took offense to being accused of stepping on a player’s injured ankle on purpose. Shortly after the game, he defended himself on Twitter.

Morris said it’s “crazy” to think that he’d intentionally try to injure someone, because basketball has never been “that serious to try to hurt somebody.” Morris then defended himself to Emmanuel Acho, who implied that it wasn’t accidental.

And he also tweeted at Nick Wright of FS1, who openly accused Morris of trying to re-injure Doncic.

On Wednesday afternoon, Morris had the chance to address the media about the incident, and he expressed disbelief that anyone would think that he was trying to hurt Doncic on purpose.

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