Playing near the basket in the NBA demands a certain level of toughness, and players surely take liberties with each other that aren’t always easily seen.
That said, what happened during Sunday night’s game between the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks is on a bit of a different level. Spurs forward Boris Diaw shared the visual evidence of what happened to teammate Patty Mills, at the hands of Mavericks center Zaza Pachulia.
Sorry for what happened to you @balapat Definitly a flagrant foul!!!
You can read Diaw’s thoughts about what happened here.
Pachulia’s grab seems to be inadvertent, and it’s possible he didn’t quite realize where his hand/fingers were as he tracks the ball. But it looks really bad at a glance, and possibly could have drawn a traditional foul if a referee had seen it. Diaw’s (likely tongue-in-cheek) suggestion of a flagrant foul would have gone too far, but too far can also be used to describe Pachulia’s grab of Mills.
