Well this is pretty ridiculous:
The NBA has hit Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin with a $25,000 fine and upgraded his Game 1 foul on Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki to a flagrant foul, league sources told ESPN.com on Monday.
An official announcement from the NBA confirming Martin’s penalties is expected later Monday.
With 5:57 to play in the first quarter of Sunday’s Game 1, Martin was called for a technical foul after knocking Nowitzki to the ground with a hard bump along the baseline after Nowitzki made his first six shots from the floor.
Nowitzki finished with 28 points and 10 rebounds but shot only 6-for-16 after the hot start. Denver pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 109-95 triumph to take a 1-0 series lead entering Tuesday night’s Game 2 at the Pepsi Center.
The flagrant foul is Martin’s first of the postseason and, after the upgrade from a technical to a flagrant foul penalty 1, puts one point in Martin’s playoff “account.” Players who exceed three points receive an automatic suspension for the next game after the three-point barrier is surpassed.
It’s believed that Martin’s history of hard fouls — compared to Boston’s Rajon Rondo, who escaped punishment for high-profile fouls in the Celtics’ first-round series with Chicago — led to a fine in addition to the reclassification of the foul.
Read the full story here.
Like Altitude TV's Scott Hastings would say, You can call this a flagrant … that's fine. But you have to call it both ways. Rajon Rondo clearly got away with a game altering foul and the NBA has set a the bar … PUSHING IS NOT OKAY … PUNCHING IN THE FACE HOWEVER, IS JUST FINE!
I'm sure this play is on YouTube and I'll try to post the link to it … but from how it looked to me Martin got a good amount of body on Dirk, but clearly the German flopped.
Thoughts?
ntimmons73@yahoo.com
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