Dexter Pittman: Miami Heat Center Deserves Suspension for Disgusting Foul
So Lance Stephenson did a stupid thing during Indiana's Game 3 win over the Heat. Big deal. If another player wants to act like a child, let him.
But don't try to sever his windpipe with a nasty flagrant foul in the waning minutes of a blowout playoff victory.
In the third quarter of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Pacers guard Lance Stephenson made the "choke" sign when LeBron James missed a free throw.
In Game 5—with less than 20 seconds remaining in an eventual 115-83 Heat win—center Dexter Pittman made him pay for it.
As Stephenson—an irrelevant bench player who was in the game only because it was far out of Indiana's reach—went up for a rebound, Pittman deliberately elbowed him in the neck.
Stephenson's Game 3 antics were both classless and immature. That's a given. That doesn't, however, mean he deserved an elbow to the neck.
That flagrant foul wasn't the first in a series that has quickly spiraled out of control. Earlier in Game 5, Indiana's Tyler Hansbrough and Miami's Udonis Haslem were both whistled for flagrant fouls.
Pittman's hit on Stephenson came on the heels of a skirmish between Stephenson and the Heat's Juwan Howard that occurred prior to Game 4, after which Stephenson apologized for his senselessness.
According to CBSSports.com's Matt Moore, he said, "I was wrong and disrespectful to my teammates, the Miami Heat and their organization. I'm sorry that I did that. It was very disrespectful."
Even LeBron had it in him to handle the situation properly. According to Palm Beach Post columnist Ethan J. Skolnick, when asked about Stephenson's ridiculata, he simply responded, "You guys are going to ask me about Lance Stephenson? I'm not even going to give him the time. ... Lance Stephenson? Really? Come on."
Still, Pittman couldn't just let it go. That would've been too much to ask.
This is not a regular-season game between two teams that don't like each other. This is a postseason game with huge implications for both teams, and the Heat—the consensus favorite to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals—need to do better than this. They are supposed to be the front-runners, the mature ones, the professionals. They aren't supposed to be senseless idiots.
Pittman obviously didn't like the way Stephenson disrespected the leader of his team. Well, get over it. LeBron James is perhaps the most recognizable face in the NBA, and when he misses a critical free throw in the midst of a playoff game his team desperately needs to win, it's not going to slip under the radar.
This isn't golf. It's the NBA, and players are going to trash-talk. It's the nature of the game, and it's nothing new. The Heat should've let their play speak for itself in Game 5, which, for the record, it did. They slaughtered the Pacers.
They didn't need to slaughter a mop-up bench player with 20 seconds left, too. Since Dexter Pittman appears to be devoid of any common sense, it's the league's responsibility to make it clear just how out of line he was.
