Rondae Hollis-Jefferson has been summoned to the PBA Commissioner’s Office as the investigation regarding the heated spat that marred Rain or Shine’s win over TNT last Friday at the SMART Araneta Coliseum continues.
The ex-Tropang Giga import has been ordered to appear before Commissioner Willie Marcial on Tuesday as the league chieftain would want to hear his side before handing down a decision regarding the matter.
The Elasto Painters came away with the 119-112 triumph to stretch their fiery win streak to five in the Season 48 Commissioner’s Cup, but all that got overshadowed by the verbal exchange between RHJ and Coach Yeng Guiao.
It happened with only 49.0 seconds left to play and with the game all but settled when Hollis-Jefferson came all the way from his seat near the TNT bench to contest the technical foul called on his older brother Rahlir.
But that didn’t sit well with RoS as he got behind the latter’s bench, leading to that incident with Guiao that heightened security inside the Big Dome.
No untoward incident took place after the final buzzer, but the outspoken coach didn’t hold back in expressing disappointment with Rondae’s behavior.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen that in my 33 years of coaching in the PBA,” said Guiao. “In the heat of the game, somebody just goes behind our bench. That’s our area. And it’s not just behind our bench, we had staff behind our bench.
“Those were our staff there. That’s a dangerous thing to pull,” he added.
“Hindi ko alam kung anong nangyari sa kanya. Tinopak ang [expletive].”
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Hollis-Jefferson, on the other hand, clarified that he was not against anyone from Rain or Shine but rather the referee who T’d up his brother. He argued, too, that he could say what he wanted since he was only watching as a fan.
The former NBA cager is already out for the conference as he continues to recover from a neck injury he suffered during the East Asia Super League. He has been on the sidelines since their Christmas Day game versus Ginebra.
“I didn’t go to their bench, I was talking to the ref,” he said. “The last game I came to, against Ginebra, I was told to get out of the bench because I’m not on the roster. Therefore, I am a fan. As a fan, I can move about where I want.
“I was upset at the ref’s call so I followed the ref down the sideline. The ref will tell you,” he added.
“As a fan, I went to the ref. One as a fan, and two that’s my brother. I could be biased whatever but I went to the ref to say that was BS.”
But Hollis-Jefferson didn’t like what he heard from Guiao.
“I have no disrespect to your team. I said nothing to your team. Nothing,” he said.
“So for you to talk to me like that as a man, when I got kids, I would never talk to you like that. I will never say anything to you like that. I would never flip you off. I’m sure they got that on camera, him flipping me off.”
Guiao was seen by the broadcast cameras flipping off the 29-year-old while the latter was being brought away by cooler heads from the incident.
Marcial and the PBA technical committee are still deliberating on the sanctions on the champion coach, who also cussed during the postgame presser.
