wow i cant believe so many of you are jumping down melos throat for this when the guy obviously exaggerated the whole thing. nothing but an extreme flop b/s call.... if someone made the same call on yao or t-mac and they got thrown out this board would go ape-****
carmelo is an overrated (all he can do is score) punk (chokes people smaller than him and punches people while backing up)
If Melo did it accidently, I'd think he would have at least protested a little bit. But he didn't. At all. Either it was deliberate, or Melo just accepted leaving the game, in which case he should be criticized as a quiter.
As far as the "inadvertent" defense goes in this case, you can't seriously tell me Carmelo didn't feel his fingers falling into place around Vujacic's neck before that shove. I'm pretty sure he just meant to hand-check Sasha to keep him at arm's length while his head was turned the other way looking at the ball. And I'm fairly certain his hand just so happened to land in the throat area. But he gave him that shove when he felt Vujacic cutting towards the basket, and there's no way he didn't feel a handful of tendons and an Adam's apple in his palm when he was doing it. I know this wasn't a premeditated act, but I think Melo let his frustration get the best of him for that split second there.
It doesn't matter if sasha exaggerated how much he was "hurt" by carmelo putting his hand around his neck. Carmelo's hand shouldn't have been around his neck in the first place. I saw the game, the nuggets were getting blown out and he was frustrated.
You biased all right. Good call by ref. Melo assuming it was his arm? Yeah right, then Melo lets go of his grip by pushing him by the throat. Deserves at least a 1 game suspension.