This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Mike Sykes.
Everyone loves the physicality that comes with playoff basketball. The game gets a little rougher. Buckets aren’t as easy to come by and it makes the stakes feel like they’re raised just a tad bit.
That’s why the flagrant fouls that we’ve seen so far in these playoffs have been so annoying.
Already, we’ve seen not one, but two flagrant 2 fouls called on different players in just one week of playoff action. There’s the one on Draymond Green from The Stomp. The latest one, though, is an incidental jab to the groin from James Harden.
That last one is particularly bothersome because, earlier in the same game, Joel Embiid intentionally kicked Nic Claxton in the groin after the Nets’ big man stepped over him. He wasn’t ejected, though. Claxton actually received a technical and later was ejected from the game after getting another technical for taunting.
There’s a clear inconsistency there. But that’s not the bothersome part of all this. Really, it’s this stat from ESPN’s Kevin Pelton.
“Typically, flagrant 2 fouls are rare. Just 14 of them were called during the entire 2022-23 NBA regular season, or an average of one every 88 games. To have two of them during the first 17 games of the playoffs inevitably stands out by contrast.”
What’s more, there were only three flagrant 2 fouls called during the 2021-22 NBA playoffs. Already, through just one week of action, we’re on the cusp of eclipsing that. That’s not good.
A lot of people blame officials for this and, on a certain level, that’s understandable. Especially when you look at the inconsistency we saw in the Claxton situation.
But, at the same time, the players have to bear some of the blame here, too.
After all, it’s Draymond Green who skipped off of Domantas Sabonis’ chest and clicked his heels together like he was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. It was James Harden who was too excessive in his nudge to Royce O’Neale without paying attention to what he was nudging.
Would it be nice to see more leeway? Sure. Especially so in Hadren’s case. But, at the same time, it’d also be great to not see players put themselves in these situations.
Hopefully, we don’t see a lot more of this in these playoffs. But considering how things are going so far, I won’t hold my breath.
Quick Hits: Mookie Betts, the GOAT…An awesome Steph Curry quote…Elon Musk being lame…and more.
— Mookie Betts went from sleeping in a hospital chair after the birth of his son to playing a position he hasn’t played in over a decade and absolutely crushing it. The GOAT.
—Steph Curry seems like a great teammate. He still rides for Draymond Green.
— Elon Musk is really out here paying for LeBron James’ blue check. What a loser.
— Here are the best spots for a Shohei Ohtani trade if it happens. And it’s going to happen. Sorry, Angels fans.
