Despite a bloodied lip, Nets’ Jarrett Allen says there was ‘no malice’ to nasty elbow by Sixers’ Joel Embiid

Jarrett Allen stood in the Nets’ locker room, his baby face sporting a bloody lip from the figurative rock fight from the first half of Game 2.

The Nets had lost. A monster third quarter by the Sixers had been their downfall. The room was quiet, but not somber. Allen, who is still too young to buy a postgame beer in Pennsylvania, was proud of the way he handled a vicious elbow to the jaw by Joel Embiid at the end of the second quarter.

“I think he was just trying to make an aggressive play and he just ended up hitting me in the mouth,” said Allen. “I don’t think there was any malice behind it.”

Embiid was called for a flagrant-1 foul on the play, which gave the Nets two free throws and the ball. Allen hit the two free throws. Had a flagrant-2 foul been called, as TNT studio analyst Charles Barkley among others argued, Embiid would have been ejected.

Embiid chuckled awkwardly as he apologized afterward, saying, “I saw the replay. Obviously, it wasn’t intentional. I got him pretty good, and I’m sorry about it. It wasn’t intentional. It was just me trying to be aggressive. I’m not [usually] humble, that’s why I’m laughing.”

A little more than 30 seconds later, Nets forward Rodions Kurucs delivered a shot to Ben Simmons’ face which also drew a flagrant-1 technical. Kurucs also could have been tossed, telling The Athletic, “I’m not scared of him.”

The game got out of hand in the second half when the Sixers opened the third quarter with a 21-2 run.

Allen, who played less than 10 minutes in Game 1, played more than 23 on Monday night. He’s about 30 pounds lighter than Embiid, which is why he was fired up to absorb that nasty elbow and draw the offensive foul.

“It was a big shot,” he said. “He knocked me to the ground. [Coaches] were talking to me about taking a charge. That was the first one of my career, so I was pretty [excited] by it ... Well, it’s the first one I remember.”

And then, for a second, he laughed, too.

“We can’t let them have another third quarter like they did,” Allen said. “We have to have the mentality that they’re going to be physical. It worked for them this game, so they’re going to try to bring it back next game.”