Did you see how they grabbed him when he tried to sprint back on their fast breaks, those are even more infuriating.
Dwight did push Bogut. Prior to that Bogut had been grabbing at Howard. But the two pushes were hardly equivalent. Dwight's push was not really different than what goes on during most plays. It was about a 3 out of 10. Bogut's push was about a 6 out of 10 ratcheted up to a 7 because he continued to hold Howard the whole time. Dwight made a mistake in his reaction and has admitted as much. I hope that he doesn't end up with enough points for a suspension.
While not a smart play, blame goes to the officials for allowing it to happen. Bogut and Green get away with a lot of holds and pushes, dirty play that needs to be called. Dwight is constantly abused by defenders and refs allow it to happen because he's bigger, stronger, and refs think he can take the punishment. It can't be called like that. The league does a terrible job of officiating big men.
Stephen A and Skip holding it down for houston. When big boys are bangin body's a hit or two might come out. As long as they aren't fighting and no series injury(no blood or anything) then just give them a tech and not flags rents or ejection
Oh now you want to hope Dwight is not suspended because all the sudden you now hope the Rockets win? The bandwagon is real!
funny thing is if he got a tech, he would be suspended next game since that would be his 7th tech in the playoffs to be suspended.
After 2 years here, you still don't know that DD is trying to reverse-jinx? Even worse are the people who have been here way longer than that and still don't realize it.
The problem is that he is doing it when the play is over and he's running to the other side of the court...it becomes "unnecessary and excessive" which is an automatic flagrant 2. If he is doing it while the ball is going up for a shot, then it's a flagrant 1. He does this over and over...it's just that we focus on it when the refs catch it. Otherwise, he could be getting flagrant 1 calls every game because he has this tendency to become over emotional and then just swing his arm out of frustration. Plus, the fact that he knows that he is 1 tech away from being suspended AND he still cant control his emotions, makes me that much more apathetic towards him. He's a dumb boy, plain and simple. Having said all that, the NBA should just keep it as it is and let the teams play. Rockets will have no chance to win with a suspension and the ratings wont be as high...so it's in everyone's best interest for Dwight to play.
He's definitely overly emotional, but I think calling him dumb is a stretch. He has high testosterone and is in a competitive situation. When you are being held and fouled it takes a lot of self control, discipline, etc. to hold your temper, not intelligence. Van Gundy is dead on with regards to this subject. It's bizarre that we've come to a place where we expect players to hold their cool in these hyper intense situations when they are getting hit. The referees have the ability to control it if they call fouls when the other team is beating on him, but they don't. It's silly to then get all righteous when he retaliates as if retaliating out of frustration is some cave man behavior that man left behind millennia ago.
But there was provocation, that has to be considered. It was an immediate reactionary response from Howard. If Howard is suspended, Bogut should be too. That said, Howard should have known better. Very disappointing.
Probably deserves one for this, but the Dirk flagrant was terrible. He should get a "make up" non-call for that.
Howard pushed him first...this keeps being lost in the middle of things. Howard pushed first, Bogut pushed back. It should have been over at that point, but Howard continued being overly aggressive. This is all on Howard.
That's just not true. Does someone have a gif/video we can post? Bogut didn't just push and leave it at that, he was holding Howard and pushing him. Howard didn't just throw an elbow to retaliate, he threw his elbow to free his arm.
Howard talked the talk but still does stupid stuff like that to put the team in this position. I don't remember Shaq put his teams in a situation like this. TBH, I am little disappointed at him at times. At critical points of the game, more often than not, he is the negative.