Dwight Howard received a flagrant 1 for hitting Andrew Bogut in the face area during Game 4 on Monday night. The Houston Rockets center was not ejected, which was somewhat surprising.
Any contact above the shoulders is supposed to be an automatic flagrant 2 foul and an ejection. We saw an example of that over the weekend when Al Horford was booted from a game for elbowing Matthew Dellavedova in the face area.
The good news for Howard is that Horford wasn’t suspended. Monday night’s officials must have felt that the contact from Howard to Bogut was incidental, though it certainly seemed like there was intent.
As we know, J.R. Smith was suspended two games earlier this postseason for this brutal swing to Jae Crowder’s face. Howard’s shot on Bogut wasn’t quite that bad, and it seems unlikely that he will be suspended with such an important game coming up for Houston. At the very least, he is fortunate he was able to stay in Game 4.
