Rajon Rondo On Whether He Tripped Jae Crowder From The Bench: I Was Just Stretching

A few hours after the Bulls announced that Rajon Rondo would be out indefinitely with a fractured thumb, he managed to grab some attention from the bench in Game 3. In Chicago’s 104-87 loss to Boston, Rondo at one point extended his leg in what appeared to be an attempt to trip Jae Crowder as the Celtics small forward jogged down the court after making a corner three-pointer:

An unsuccessful attempted trip, but it does seem look to like an attempted trip nonetheless. After the game, however, Rondo was ready to go with a convenient rationale for his leg movement: he’d just been stretching, with his leg having gotten stiff courtesy of the torn ACL he suffered back in January 2013.

Hmm.

Update (Sunday, 12:05 p.m.): The NBA has fined Rondo $25,000 for what it deemed “attempting to trip” Crowder.