Well, I disagree with most, he definately should be suspended for that. You cnanot have guys that big swinging at other guys heads on the court, period. Had Howard come down on Pierce shoulders instead of his head AND had he made any attempt WHATSOEVER at the ball, I'd say Flagrant 1.
A) Yes, size matters to a degree but you can't punish Howard for his height. B) In the half a second in which a moving Pierce is going to the basket it is hard to claim Howard rather than trying to give a hard, playoff foul, and yes not playing the ball, is intentionally trying to hit Pierce's head. He didn't try for the ball entirely. That is why he got a flagrant one. That is what a flagrant one is. This wasn't some brutal hit. Paul got back up. He was fine. He said himself he didn't think Howard should be ejected, that it was a good hard playoff foul.
This? Flagrant 2, no question. If Perk did that, as someone else mentioned, he's ejected, Minimum. MINIMUM.
I really don't buy that Perk gets tossed for that. Yes, the Association has demonstrated what one could call different standards at times for players of different statures but they have been pretty clear actually about flagrant fouls. And it isn't like Amare wasn't suspended in the playoffs, Patrick Ewing for barely leaving the bench, KG for his elbow, etc etc. That was a flagrant one.
KG barely grazed a guy's head with an open ahnd during a scrum one time in Sacramento I think and he got suspended.
While I think Qrich should have been suspended for perhpas 2-3 games because had HE NOT INSTIGATED that melee, no one would have been put in danger, KG deserved to get his one game suspension for throwing a "fairly soft" elbow at Qrich.
Howard's foul was far more intentional and far, far more dangerous.
You can't compare a foul in the action of basketball play to an elbow in a scrum. Period. The league doesn't look at them the same. A foul is different from pushing, shoving, elbows, punches. A foul occurs in a moment where contact is part of the natural flow of the game. KG's elbow, for example, happened outside the course of basketball action. The league views that as a time in which contact with another player is not to happen. Howard's foul was intentional but it was intentional in a time when contact happens. KG was incidental but in a time that in the view of the NBA no contact should happen. They are radically different.
The play this would be closer in comparison to is Rondo's hit on Brad Miller. No flagrant was even assessed on that play.
And, KG did not get a flagrant. He got two technicals. In that alone they are qualitatively different not quantitatively different.
If that gets you a suspension, when you are being antagonised as KG was, then this one by Howard, which was clearly intentionally and with zero attempt at the ball, deserves a suspension.
And it's not because I want him gone. I'd say the same if it were Perk that had done it. That's not basketball and should have no place on the court.
Haard raking fouls on the arms? Yes. Tying someone up hard? Yes.
That play? No way.
Well, I have stated why I don't think Howard should be suspended. And it would hold for Perk, or Bynum or Amare. No player deserves a suspension or ejection for that foul. It was a flagrant one, yes, but that is all. A textbook example of a flagrant one. A flagrant one was called, we all move on.
