Ja Morant laughs off at NBA refs owning up to mistake in controversial ejection

For better or for worse, Ja Morant knows how to command attention on social media. Hours after being ejected from the Memphis-Sacramento game, the Grizzlies star let the world know his reaction to the referees' decision.

His reaction? A single emoji that said it all.

Given Morant's history with gaffes on social media, you might think that he would reconsider posting messages like this. This time, however, Morant might actually have some leeway.

Why was Morant ejected?

At the 8:07 mark of the fourth quarter, Morant was called for a technical foul for supposedly hurling profanities at an official during an out-of-bounds play. At that point, the Memphis guard was already behind the eight ball. Not only was he one technical foul away from ejection, but the Kings had also retaken the lead 95-94, courtesy of DeMar DeRozan's technical free throw. And then, with 6:45 left in the game, this happened:

As his teammates looked on incredulously, Morant walked towards the Memphis bench, his finger pointed at the official that had blown a whistle on a perceived defensive foul. It was then that Morant got called for his second tech, supposedly because he was uttering expletives at an official again.

Why was Morant so heated at this point? Perhaps he felt that his defensive position against DeRozan was legal after all. If you look more closely at that possession, you'll see that Morant took no excessively physical swipes and stayed vertical against the ball handler. Even as Morant raised his hand to challenge DeRozan's shot attempt, he does not appear to have initiated any contact that led to DeRozan falling down.

Eventually, cooler heads prevailed on the Memphis bench and the Grizzlies went on to win the game 115-110. Though Morant was not his usual prolific self on the scoring end, he'd tallied seven assists and three rebounds at the time that he left the game.

Memphis coach comments on transparency

As the Morant situation went down, Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins was seen giving the referees an earful, even as he was being physically restrained by his coaching staff. He too had something to say about the officiating, albeit in a more professional manner.

"I'm not going to go on to [talk about] consistency and all that stuff," Jenkins calmly said when asked about the officiating in the post-game press conference. "But you know, I do wonder about transparency in real-time moments."

As if in response to Jenkins' comments, the NBA released the pool report explaining the thought process of the officials who called Morant for a couple of techs. To no one's surprise, Morant decided to be transparent as well—and all it took was one laughing emoji.