"Is Old Popo senile? Brother Yi was being friendly and giving him a thumbs-up. Why would he sneer at him?"
"Has that old guy's brain stopped working? Making that kind of gesture on the court—won't the ref call a technical foul?"
"What's gotten into the old geezer? He's acting like he's got a gunpowder fuse!"
Sure enough, the referee saw Popovich's middle finger and blew the whistle before the game had even started. Then he made the T signal at Popovich.
Popovich didn't pay the slightest attention to the technical foul. He just continued glaring furiously at Wang Yi.
After being pranked so badly in the locker room before the game, Popovich had naturally wanted to vent on the court with a middle finger. Instead, he'd been hit with a technical.
It was truly one thing after another: a leaky roof in a night of rain, and a boat sailing into a headwind.
The camera turned to the Kings players on the court. After Wang Yi got the finger, he wasn't angry at all—in fact, he was beaming. The Kings players were all grinning, too.
Even head coach De'Anthony's snowy white beard was sticking up.
It was baffling. Wang Yi had been friendly to Popovich and gotten a middle finger in return, so surely he should have been at least a little annoyed. Yet all the Kings players were grinning. Were they really that happy just because Popovich had gotten a technical?
The NBA had seen countless technical fouls, but you never saw an opposing team this delighted when one was called.
A fan in the comments analyzed the situation: "Could there be something going on here? Look how happy the Kings players are, and how furious Popovich is. He gave Wang Yi the finger right away. Did the Kings