Tied by two summertime Timberwolves’ transactions that essentially swapped one for the other, point guards Jeff Teague and Ricky Rubio came to a very real, if fleeting, connection Friday at Utah.
In an instant and in frustration, Teague, on a full run alongside Rubio, body-checked him into the Wolves’ bench, a collision that the officiating crew deemed unnecessary and excessive contact worthy of an automatic ejection with 5:20 left in the Jazz’s 116-108 victory.
Statistically, Teague won the individual matchup for the second consecutive meeting between the teams, but Rubio’s Jazz won Friday after Wolves center Karl-Anthony Towns also was ejected just before halftime.