ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith was appalled at the decision by NBA officials at Thursday night’s Brooklyn Nets-Philadelphia 76ers game to eject Sixers guard James Harden for a flagrant foul.
Harden appeared to foul Nets forward Royce O’Neale, when he used his off-hand to try and create space. Harden ended up hitting his hand on O’Neale’s groin and he was ejected. NBA official Tony Brothers said the hit to the groin ‘rose to the level of excessive.’
Earlier in the game, Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid only received a flagrant 1 foul for intentionally kicking Nets center Nic Claxton between the legs.
Referees did not eject Embiid from the game and there is no word on whether or not he will be suspended for doing something similar in nature to Warriors forward Draymond Green.
Smith was shocked that officials made the decision, adding that he didn’t want to discuss their performance rather than the game’s result – a 102-97 win for Philadelphia – but the playoffs were an exception.
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith Criticized Officials for ejecting Philadelphia guard James Harden
Harden (1) was ejected for a hit to the groin ruled to have ‘rose to the level of excessive’
‘That might be the worst ejection I’ve ever seen in NBA history,’ Smith began. ‘A legitimate argument can be made [that] it wasn’t even a foul.
‘But if you called them for the foul, okay, that’s fine. Offensive foul. It’s not a flagrant one. He was trying to create some space. I’m not sure he hit him in the lower extremities. I didn’t see that. I’m like what’s going on here?
‘And Tony Brothers is one of the top refs – I think he was recently voted top ref in the game. You’re on the court last night. How do you let that happen? How does that call stand? Even the Brooklyn Nets know James Harden shouldn’t have been ejected.
Even the Nets know. They’re still salty about Embiid not being ejected because clearly Embiid should have been ejected, no doubt about it. But Harden it’s debatable.
Smith continued, saying, ‘And I know… The league hates it when a bunch of people in the media are complaining about the officials. Let me give the league some information it may not know. The media hates complaining about the officials. Nobody cares. We’re not there to watch them.
‘We don’t want to talk about the officials. We don’t want to sit up there and call out a Tony Brothers or Ben Taylor or anybody else. We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to do that. We got better things to do with our time than talk about the damn officials.
‘But when it’s that egregious in a playoff game… the league office has to get involved… Where they got to get involved is: where’s the human element? Where’s that element that sits up there and makes you pause for a second and say, “this is a playoff game, this ain’t some just regular old regular season game”.
Earlier in the game, officials chose not to eject Joel Embiid (21) for this kick to Nic Claxton (33)
Embiid played a pivotal role in the rest of the game, winning it for Philly 102-97 to go up 3-0
‘The officials don’t want us talking about them. They work hard. They’re very talented. For the most part, they get it right. We’re not here to excoriate the officials as if they’re bad apples.
‘What we’re saying is, if you miss a call, if you make a mistake, it happens. The human element comes along with it. It only gets exacerbated when you’re ejecting people from the game, because what you’re saying is we’re going to focus on what our rules are, and we’re not going to pay wrapped attention to the paying customer and the audience out there who have been clamoring and salivating to see these dudes play.
‘James Harden is a star in this league… He does not have a history of being a dirty player or anything like that. That is a typical move that he has made throughout his career. You want to call an offensive foul, fine. An ejection? That’s unconscionable.’
The win gave Philadelphia a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series – a lead no team has ever come back from. Brooklyn hosts the Sixers for Game 4 on Saturday.
