Josh Hart and the Knicks maintained that it was unintentional. But ultimately that didn’t matter when referees led by team boss Scott Foster decided it was the right, if difficult, decision to send Hart off.
“By rule, we deemed the act unnecessary and excessive, so it is a flagrant foul penalty 2,” Foster said in the official NBA pool report. “Intent is not a criterion for what we do when deciding on a flagrant penalty foul 2 or 1. However, conclusion, impact and follow-up, injury potential, whether the act was a non-basketball play and the location of the contact and the fact that we thought it was reckless are all the criteria we believe met for this decision.
Foster added that it took us some time to decide because “we understood the impact of our decision on the game.” He further explained that all three referees would have to agree unanimously when to send off a player, so they had to look at it from multiple angles.