Rather surprisingly, the NBA elected not to suspend Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas for hitting Atlanta’s Dennis Schroder in the head during game three of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Schroder in particular isn’t too impressed with that decision.
Thomas wasn’t even whistled at the time (click here to see the incident) and was assessed a flagrant-1 foul instead of a suspension, which means he’ll be good to go for game four.
After practice on Saturday, Schroder expressed his displeasure with the NBA’s decision.
“I still feel disrespected [about] what he did,” Schroder said, via ESPN’s Chris Forsberg. “I just scored a basket and tried to go back on defense and he smacked me. It had nothing to do with basketball.
“We talked with the referees before the playoffs, and what they told us is what he did to me yesterday is a suspension. I can’t control it. It is on the [league memo] and Coach [Mike Budenholzer] told us that we can’t do this, we can’t do that, it is going to be a suspension.”
Thomas obviously took a differing view.
“It was the right call,” Thomas said. “I’m really focused on Game 4, but I’m glad I wasn’t suspended.”
Thomas did admit that he was worried that he’d miss game four after the uproar about the play following the game.
“How much [the Hawks] were complaining about it, yeah,” Thomas said. “I’m focused on Game 4, man. They made the call of what it was, a flagrant-1, whatever it was. I’m glad I’m able to play.”
Considering former NBA VP Stu Jackson thought Thomas would be suspended, he can probably count himself a bit lucky to get away with this. Schroder himself sounded off in a since-deleted tweet about how Thomas got away with hitting him in the head. Hard to blame him for his displeasure.
