Orlando Magic guard Jalen Suggs is staring at an automatic NBA fine – and maybe a bigger bill if his tech count piles up – after his first-half ejection from Tuesday’s blowout NBA Cup win over the Philadelphia 76ers in Philadelphia.
Suggs was tossed with 27 seconds left in the second quarter when a heated skirmish around the Magic free-throw line turned into a full-on shove-fest involving Andre Drummond and Jabari Walker. He was hit with two technical fouls on the play and ejected, while Wendell Carter Jr., Drummond, Walker and Desmond Bane were each given a single technical.
Orlando barely flinched, cruising a massive lead and a relatively uncontested game behind a breakout scoring night from second-year guard Anthony Black.
Jalen Suggs Tossed After Shoving Andre Drummond in First-Half Skirmish
The altercation started when Drummond and Carter squared up near the top of the key after a foul, exchanging words and posturing as officials and teammates tried to separate them.
Suggs sprinted into the scrum and shoved Drummond, then kept jawing and jostling with Walker as players from both sides stepped in. After a video review, officials gave Suggs two technical fouls on the same sequence, triggering an automatic ejection.
Before he was tossed, Suggs quietly put together a monster playmaking half: he logged 4 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 blocks in just 16 minutes. At halftime, the Magic led 86-60 – a franchise record for points in any half – with Black exploding for 27 points before the break.
Black didn’t cool off much after the incident. He finished with 31 points on 12-of-17 shooting, including 4-of-6 from three, to lead seven Magic players in double figures as Orlando improved to 10-8.
NBA Rules Guarantee Suggs a Fine After 76ers Ejection
The NBA rulebook allows a player to be ejected for two unsportsmanlike technical fouls in the same game, which is exactly what happened to Suggs.
Under the league’s fine schedule, each technical foul in the regular season carries a tiered penalty: $2,000 apiece for a player’s first five technicals, $3,000 each for fouls 6-10 and $4,000 each for fouls 11-15. A 16th technical triggers a $5,000 fine and an automatic one-game suspension. On top of that, every ejection brings its own separate fine — $2,000 for a first ejection and escalating amounts for repeat offenses.
Put together, Suggs is in line to lose at least $6,000 from this one flare-up alone: two technical-foul fines plus the automatic ejection fine, assuming he hasn’t crossed into the higher technical tiers yet. The NBA has not yet announced the official discipline, but the amounts are baked into the CBA’s standard fine schedule.
This isn’t Suggs’ first run-in with the league office, either. In 2023, he served a one-game suspension without pay for “escalating the altercation” during an on-court fight between the Magic and Minnesota Timberwolves by grabbing Austin Rivers around the neck and pulling him to the floor.
More recently, public fine logs show Suggs was docked $2,000 for a technical foul in a November 18 game this season, adding to the total the league has already taken from his paycheck.
What Suggs’ Ejection Means for the Magic’s NBA Cup Push
In the short term, Orlando survived the drama just fine. With Joel Embiid, Paul George and several other Sixers regulars already sidelined, Philadelphia never recovered from the second-quarter avalanche that put Orlando up by 26 at the break.
Head coach Jamahl Mosley leaned on Black and veteran guard Tyus Jones to handle the offense in Suggs’ absence, and the Magic offense didn’t slow down.
The longer-term concern is Suggs’ relationship with the whistle. Every extra technical pushes him closer to the 16-tech suspension line, and the league has already shown once that it will hit him with a game ban if it believes he escalated a confrontation.
Orlando’s NBA Cup group play continues Friday on the road against the Detroit Pistons. If the Magic want to keep rolling – and keep their young point guard on the floor – Suggs will need to keep his playmaking edge without letting the next confrontation cost him even more money or a future game.
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