On Sunday afternoon, the NBA announced the suspensions they were handing out in the altercation that occurred on Friday night in the matchup between the New Orleans Pelicans and Miami Heat. Five players were suspended in total, two from the Pelicans and three from the Heat.
For New Orleans, Naji Marshall received a one-game suspension while Jorge Alvarado received three. Marshall served his suspension as he sat out the team’s loss to the Chicago Bulls on Sunday night.
For Miami, Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jovic each received a one-game suspension. Like Alvarado, Thomas Bryant received a three-game suspension from the league. Those punishments will start on Monday night when the Heat visit the Sacramento Kings.
Based on how the NBA’s rules are written, the Heat should be considered lucky that only three players were suspended. Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo also left the bench area during the altercation, but the league opted not to suspend them.
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That is something Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra praised Commissioner Adam Silver and NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars for. He was relieved to see them put more of an emphasis on context than enforcing the rule word-by-word.
“[Dumars] understands it from a player’s perspective and I think that’s really important,” Spoelstra said, referring to the 14-year NBA career of Dumars before taking on the role of NBA executive. “That it’s not letter of the law, it’s observing it, looking at it, seeing all the context of it and then making the best decision based on everybody’s parties. The league, No. 1, the players and teams.”
The NBA revealed their reasoning behind all of the suspensions, and their rationale for handing out the suspensions they did does make sense. A player who took a step over the sideline reacting to what happened but didn’t get involved in the skirmish doesn’t deserve the same punishment as a person who got involved.
“I think Joe has a really good feel for it and all of our interactions with him have been very good and objective,” Spoelstra continued on Dumars. “I respect that about Joe. Everybody wants the same thing, everybody wants what’s best for the league. You don’t want anything that’s going to turn into something over the top, into the fans. But if a guy is just on the sideline and he takes one step over, that would not make sense for him to be suspended.”
The Heat will now be short-handed on Monday against the Kings, but it could have certainly been worse had the NBA enforced the rules in place literally. Luckily for Miami that was not the case, as they will have Adebayo and Herro in the lineup and wait one game to get Butler and Jovic back.
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