Grayson Allen’s game has grown since he left Duke. He’s stronger, has a better jumper and perhaps even takes players down with his hands rather than his feet.
Allen, whose reputation as a serial tripper grew while with the Blue Devils, sent Chicago’s Alex Caruso crashing to the ground in a play that broke Caruso’s wrist, got Allen tossed and Caruso called “bulls–t.”
In the third quarter of Friday’s matchup in Milwaukee, the Bulls had a three-on-two breakaway in which Caruso, at a full sprint, received a pass, leapt in the air and glided to the basket. Allen undercut him at an angle and didn’t get nearly as high. He used his left hand to hook Caruso’s right arm and send him twirling, and Allen’s right hand then forced its way in, as if blocking a ball that was no longer there.
Caruso hit the floor hard and was down for several moments. He said his right wrist was “a little banged up,” but after initial X-rays came back negative, the Bulls said Saturday the wrist was fractured. He will undergo surgery next week and be reevaluated in 6-8 weeks.
Allen was given a Flagrant 2 foul, and Bulls coach Billy Donovan hopes the discipline does not end there.
“Really, really bad,” Donovan told reporters after the Bucks’ 94-90 win but before the diagnosis. “… For Alex to be in the air like that, for him to take him down like that, he could have ended his career. And [Allen] has a history of this. That, to me, was really dangerous.
“I really hope the league takes a hard look at something like that.”
Donovan compared the incident unfavorably with the October play in which the Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson tried to block Bulls forward Patrick Williams and didn’t come close. Robinson got Williams in the face, and Williams landed on his wrist, which resulted in a dislocation. Donovan thought Robinson’s play was fair – it was an attempt at the ball.
The play from Allen was different.
“Dude just grabbed me out of the air. Kind of bulls–t,” Caruso said Friday. “I don’t know what else you can do about it.”
Allen, a solid contributor for Milwaukee, has mostly been out of the spotlight since leaving Duke with a nasty reputation. This was his first flagrant foul of the season and second of his NBA career. He did not speak publicly following the game.
“Grayson Allen giggling after receiving a flagrant 2 and being ejected seems pretty on brand for him,” former NBA star and current ESPN analyst Richard Jefferson wrote on Twitter.