justalars on March 05, 2008 said:

Damn that Nowitzki

Jeff on March 06, 2008 said:

Is it just me or does it seem unfair that Houston should be the beneficiaries of Dirk’s suspension? Why not suspend him for the April 10th game against the Jazz who will have to do without the help of Kirilenko for who knows how many games?

According to the league, the refs had it wrong *gasp* and he should have been tossed. There should be harsher penalties for fouls of this nature. Here is what I propose: on April 10th the Mavs begin the game with a negative score equal to Nowitzki’s average points per game (23).

If the foul results in an injury, shouldn’t it automatically be a flagrant-2? After looking at the foul it seems like Dirk could have let go but he definitely didn’t want AK to score, so he held on. In soccer he would have been shown the red card, escorted from the field, suspended for the next game and his team would have had to play short a man.

The NBA needs to penalize players that commit this type of foul where it really hurts them. I must say that it should not be meted out on the spot by the refs, they have too much power as it is, but by an objective review board after the fact. If there were some kind of sportsmanship factor that was figured into home court advantage for playoff teams and draft picks for non-contenders, I think we would see fewer fouls like this.