Techniques are provided herein for a receiver protection circuit in a time-division duplex (TDD) system. The receive protection circuit has a first diode with an anode that is coupled to an input of a low-noise-amplifier (LNA) and a cathode that is coupled to a ground. A controller is coupled to the anode of the diode and is configured to generate a control signal for turning on the diode when the TDD system is in a transmission mode. A load is coupled to the diode such that a reflected transmit signal is shorted to the ground by the diode and the radio frequency energy carried in the reflected transmit signal is consumed by the load.