Haslem, Pittman Suspended

Haslem was suspended by NBA executive vice president Stu Jackson for Thursday's Game 6 and Pittman was suspended for three games. Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough, who also committed a flagrant foul on Heat star Dwyane Wade, had his foul upgraded to a flagrant foul 2 from a flagrant 1, but he avoided suspension. ESPN

He got something right. David Stern finally nailed it with these suspensions. I guess the only criticism would be that Pittman should have been suspended a little longer, but whatever, he's Dexter Pittman. This puts the Heat at a disadvantage on the road with them losing 2 of their 4 big men. Haslem has started to play real well the past 2 games and so losing that mid range threat will just put more effort on LeBron and Wade to shoulder the load. It also puts them at a significant deficiency defensively if Joel Anthony or Ronny Turiaf get in foul trouble. The counter to this would just go small and try to out transition the Pacers for the whole game, but that's easier said than done with Indiana having Roy Hibbert and David West as their bangers.

I see Indy taking this next game.

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First and foremost the Heat won 100000000 to 0, the second thing you need to know is Danny Granger and David West have ankle and knee injuries, 3rd is that there is no way the Pacers push the Heat to 7 games. The Pacers laid down so bad that Larry Bird called them out and called them all soft.

But something overshadowing the game are the 3 flagrant fouls, here they are:
First Tyler Hansbrough did this to Wade

Then Haslem did this to Hansbrough

Then Dexter Pittman did this to Lance Stevenson


The Hansbrough foul, I'm fine with. He went after the ball, that was more of a hard foul than flagrant. The second foul Haslem did was flagrant and he deserves to be sat down for a game. It's ridiculous that Haslem wasn't ejected for a flagrant 2 and if Stern doesn't suspend him a game it's ridiculous. That was almost as bad as Ron Artest.

Dexter Pittman's hard foul on Lance Stephenson I'm also fine with, Lance made a name for himself by taunting LeBron despite being the last person on the Pacers bench. He deserved to have a message sent to him, so good for Dexteer Pittman, even if it costs him a game.

The Heat are rolling and get ready for the next game to have a bunch of the insufferable double tech call.