MILWAUKEE — Longtime NBA official Scott Foster called two flagrant foul penalties on a bang-bang play and gave a different explanation after the game than Foster gave to both the head coach and the players on the court. The Knicks forward said after starting to offer in a pool report: Josh Hart believes rule changes should be considered.
Specifically, Hart believes ejections for two flagrant foul penalties should be decided by officials at the league office in Secaucus, N.J., rather than by the officials on the floor.
“Hopefully – if it's a ruling where a player is ejected from the game – people from Secaucus who are just involved in the game, from the officials on the court who may have other involvement in the game. “I hope we can change that decision.” A handful of people. There's consistency,” Hart said before tipoff Sunday against the Bucks. “[Starting Knicks center] Isaiah [Hartenstein] He got his head ripped off two games before that, but it was Flagrant 1. ”
With less than a minute left in the first quarter of the Knicks' 108-100 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Friday, Hart ran the lane, left his feet and scored at the rim, but before Chicago's Javonte Green took the ball out of his hands. .
After losing the ball, Hart flaps in the air. As part of the flail, his foot made contact with Green's face.
Foster immediately gave Hart a flagrant foul penalty of 2 and ejected him from the game. Both Hart and head coach Tom Thibodeau believed Foster's decision included intentionality, saying Hart looked Green in the face and intentionally kicked him, leaving Foster with no choice but to eject him from the game. He said that he told him that he was
But Foster said in his postgame pool report that intent had nothing to do with Hart's decision to eject him, a 180-degree turn from the explanation he gave to Thibodeau and Hart on the court at the United Center on Friday.
“Intent is not a criterion for what we do when making decisions. A flagrant foul penalty is two or one,” Foster said in a pool report. “But the windup, the impact and follow-through, the potential for injury, whether the act was a non-basketball play, the location of the contact and whether it appeared to be a reckless act are all things we consider. These are the criteria that I felt.''We came together to make this decision. ”
Hart insisted he did not intentionally kick Green.
“It’s clearly off balance,” he said. “My legs are up before I even see him. But I thought he couldn't understand that my athletic ability was so great that I could make the decision to kick him in a split second. Kudos to Scott Foster.”
Hart said he should have been given one flagrant foul penalty, which would have kept the Knicks guard in the game and made two free throws to give the ball back to the Bulls.
“[It] It obviously sucks and is out of my control,” he said. “Flagrant 1 I think it probably should have happened. It was just a coincidence, but later he said, 'Oh, it doesn't matter what the intention is, yada, yada, yada,' so I thought he was… I don’t know what I was thinking.’ But then he told me I saw him and kicked him. This clearly implies that I meant it.
“I don't know what his thought process was, because it was two different stories. That's what it is.
“He said, 'You looked at him and kicked him,' and then he was answering questions and talking about intentions. Obviously he made it the way I intended. [when] I didn't have time to think about kicking him. So obviously he just gave me the technique right before that. Perhaps he went there with a negative connotation of what happened. That's why sometimes it becomes reality. ”
Just two games earlier, on March 31st against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Hartenstein was hit worse than Hart hit Green in Chicago.
Hartenstein pump-faked Thunder forward Kenrich Williams into the air, and Williams tried to block the shot, which grazed Hartenstein's head.
Officials ruled that Williams was given a flagrant foul penalty and allowed to remain in the game.
Ms. Hart said Ms. Foster did not ask for an explanation after the play.
“He just kind of walked away. He couldn't say anything,” he said Sunday. “If you look at the play, it's clearly a bang-bang play.If I look at him and say I kicked him, there is an assumption that “you were the one who made the decision to do that.'' I don't think I even had time to make that decision. So I thought that was strange. ”
Hart was given a technical foul early in the quarter, but it was called off. However, if the league does not reverse Friday's two flagrant fouls, he will be fined at least $2,000.
Additionally, the Knicks were shattered by the glass in a disappointing loss to the Bulls, who ranked No. 9 in the East.
“You give me the power to lose money in people's hands [that] He just swore,” Hart said. “I don't think that's right. You know what I'm saying? It affects the game and my pocketbook, and that's interesting.
“I don't even know about that child. [Green]. As I said, this is an interesting decision, especially in the first quarter. Of course, it was the third quarter and it was a shaky game, so I understood it a little bit more, even if I had to give an example. But especially in the second half of this season, bro. Every match is important. It's clearly not an intentional act and it's selfish to make such a call. ”
Hart joked that the ejection may ultimately change his offseason training regimen.
“Taekwondo may be in your summer training plans right now. If Scott is free this summer, you're welcome to take a class or two with me.”
