As you obviously have an alternative angle on this fiasco.

I don’t think darius intentionally punched lebron. Their arms were tangled up and the far far stronger king james definitely pulled up on his arm. But darius was clearly pissed off and flailed his arms a little more than necessary to disentangle himself which resulted in the slap. I don’t think it deserves a suspension (especially not since KG walked on his blatant after the play elbow), but the T was warranted.

How Wiz fans were going to justify this one. I got my answer. Thank you.

For what its worth, I think its laughable to suggest Songalia did this “on accident”. No, I don’t think Songalia is a dirty player or a violent player. But people do all kinds of things when they get caught up in the moment. If you look at your screen cap right before Songalia karate chops LeBron, it’s obvious he’s looking right at him. He knew what he was doing. I don’t think he should be suspended, but I do think he should have been ejected last night. But of course you guys are going to try to justify this…..your Wiz fans. And of course I’m going to think it was intentional….I’m a Cavs fan. That’s the nature of being a fan.

Anyway, it had little to do with the outcome of the game. The Wiz made plays in the last minute and the Cavs simply didn’t. I told you guys before that this Cavs team falls asleep when they feel comfortable, and when they went up 5 with 1:30 left, they thought it was over and they stopped playing. Before they knew what had hit them, the Wizards took the lead and LeBron couldn’t get it going again. Credit to the Wiz for making plays when they needed to and shame on the Cavs for not. We’ve got ourselves a series again.

I understand you being pissed, watching that angle and listening to Albert/Miller huff and puff. The local DC sports TV had a much better shot from behind the basket and you call tell that Lebron’s arm was hooked inside Darius’s arm. When Lebron tried to yank it out, then Darius’ arm flung towards him.

It was completely accidental and there was no real intentional punch. I hope you get a chance to see this camera angle.

And, yes, series is back on!

...because I can’t stand the inane and ridiculous play calling of Reggie Miller and Marv Albert. What a horrible tandem.

No one is saying that Darius Songaila wasn’t trying to get his arm unlocked…..I’m sure that movement on his part contributed to the violent appearance of the act.

Everyone at ESPN and various media outlets seem to only be privy to that one angle from TNT…..and if that’s the only angle that I saw, then I might falsely conclude maliciousness on the part of Songaila as well.

But trust us here….Comcast in DC showed multiple angles from the baseline and it was clear that this was nothing but an unfortunate accident.

Thankfully, that unjust technical did not have an effect on the outcome of the game.

You have to see the comcast angle to actually understand how it happened. First of all, Darius did foul LeBron on the way to the hoop. As James comes down he runs into Darius and somehow their arms become entangled as Darius then seems to let his arm go limp (it looks as if he was just trying to be as passive as possible after the contact and avoid any crazy stuff). James reacts to the entanglement by quickly jerking his arm upward to clear himself from Darius – the only problem is that Darius’ limp arm is sitting on top of LeBron’s arm, and gets propelled upwards by James’ quick motion. You know the rest.

Am I biased? Sure. But I can’t make this stuff up. The Comcast replay clearly shows that all the force from the blow was generated by James’ arm movement. Now, is Darius crafty enough to let his arm go limp knowing when James’ jerks away it will cause a little love tap to the jaw? Maybe, maybe not. Still not suspension worthy. As Jake wisely points out, players who just were involved in an intentional punch/blow/slap do not calmly walk away from each other and try to explain things. That’s just common sense.

I don’t really blame the refs – they are on edge (just from the previous games and all the talk) and they had a terrible angle too. At least they realized that the whole play was generated by the entanglement and so when they saw Darius’ arm fly up they thought he was reacting badly but they also realized it wasn’t really a punch (or he would have been tossed in a heartbeat!).

I hate the flagrant foul calls too.

When a 7 footer and 6’8 260 man, collide full speed, what does the NBA expect is going to happen?

If it is the type of dirty foul that would start a fight on the playground, then it needs to be called a flagrant but most of them are just hard, physical plays. It is basketball.