Carmelo ejected for flagrant 2

[CelticsElite]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/21309298/oklahoma-city-thunder-carmelo-anthony-puzzled-being-ejected-loss-portland-trail-blazers

Mere 2 days after westbrook slaps jaylen brown in a jump ball : "It's nonsense, man," Westbrook said of the ejection. "It don't make any sense."

[kiwiceltic]

A friend of mine was just talking about this. Horrible call, yes Melo initiated the contact, but he was not intentionally looking to connect with Nurkic's face.

[playdream]

It's the right call
Melo didn't need to make that contact at first place, he can just score, instead he choose to make the contact with his elbows

[CelticD]

He used his elbows as a shield and accidentally made face contact. I'd give it a flagrant 1, I don't think it was intentional.

[Roy H.]

That should be, at worst, an offensive foul. There’s no intent there, and he was attempting to make a basketball play.

Does anyone think Carmelo was doing anything other than trying to score?

[A Future of Stevens]

There was no intent. I don't really understand the rules anymore.

[mr. dee]

NBA has really turned into creampuff league.

[JSD]

OKC unraveling over a few calls. Good stuff

[yelkao]

That’s the weakest thing I’ve ever seen. Not a Melo fan at all, but that is so soft and makes little sense.

[JSD]

I thought Melo did it on purpose or without regard for Nurkic’s safety.

[hpantazo]

That should be, at worst, an offensive foul. There’s no intent there, and he was attempting to make a basketball play.

Does anyone think Carmelo was doing anything other than trying to score?

Agreed. The wussification of the NBA continues

[Big333223]

I don't know if it's a flagrant 2 but it's probably, at least, a flagrant 1. Especially if you watch it from the overheard angle, you can see really clearly that Melo is not jumping toward the basket at all, he's jumping into Nurkic on purpose. That's not uncommon (IT and Harden and many others have made a career of it) but rather than turn his body away from Nurkic, toward the rim (as one would do when one is trying to score) he actually turns his body away from the basket.

To the ref's point, it does look pretty unnatural to me.

[hpantazo]

I don't know if it's a flagrant 2 but it's probably, at least, a flagrant 1. Especially if you watch it from the overheard angle, you can see really clearly that Melo is not jumping toward the basket at all, he's jumping into Nurkic on purpose. That's not uncommon (IT and Harden and many others have made a career of it) but rather than turn his body away from Nurkic, toward the rim (as one would do when one is trying to score) he actually turns his body away from the basket.

To the ref's point, it does look pretty unnatural to me.

That’s a highly common attempt to draw a foul though, not at all an intent to injure. That’s a horrible call. Melo was in the air trying to score, its a basketball play. At most, you call it an offensive foul and move on

[Roy H.]

I don't know if it's a flagrant 2 but it's probably, at least, a flagrant 1. Especially if you watch it from the overheard angle, you can see really clearly that Melo is not jumping toward the basket at all, he's jumping into Nurkic on purpose. That's not uncommon (IT and Harden and many others have made a career of it) but rather than turn his body away from Nurkic, toward the rim (as one would do when one is trying to score) he actually turns his body away from the basket.

To the ref's point, it does look pretty unnatural to me.

He’s trying to finish through contact. It’s hard to say he’s not trying to score when, in fact, he scored. The initial contact was by the defender, which is why Carmelo was given an And-1.

[Big333223]

I don't know if it's a flagrant 2 but it's probably, at least, a flagrant 1. Especially if you watch it from the overheard angle, you can see really clearly that Melo is not jumping toward the basket at all, he's jumping into Nurkic on purpose. That's not uncommon (IT and Harden and many others have made a career of it) but rather than turn his body away from Nurkic, toward the rim (as one would do when one is trying to score) he actually turns his body away from the basket.

To the ref's point, it does look pretty unnatural to me.

That’s a highly common attempt to draw a foul though, not at all an intent to injure. That’s a horrible call. Melo was in the air trying to score, its a basketball play. At most, you call it an offensive foul and move on

He’s trying to finish through contact. It’s hard to say he’s not trying to score when, in fact, he scored. The initial contact was by the defender, which is why Carmelo was given an And-1.

I don't know what to tell you other than to look at the video. He doesn't jump toward the basket, he jumps at Nurkic and he turns away from the rim. It looks to me like his goal was to create contact first and shoot second. Which is exactly what happened.

I know this is a common play, I said that it wasn't uncommon in my post. Just because refs typically give the offensive player the benefit of the doubt doesn't mean they're right to reward offensive players for trying to engineer and-1's by creating contact.