Three days after the incident between LeBron James and Isaiah Stewart in the Los Angeles Lakers' win over the Detroit Pistons that resulted in James receiving his second career ejection and first career suspension, the superstar forward had an opportunity to address the altercation.

After leading the Lakers to an OT win versus the Indiana Pacers, LeBron was asked to detail what happened on his flagrant-2 foul and ensuing fracas with Stewart, whose incensed and dangerous reaction clearly escalated the situation beyond what anyone expected.

James said the interaction was purely physical and certainly accidental.

“What happened is: it was a box out on the free-throw line, his elbow got me off balance a little bit … I tried to swim move down on his arm, the left side of my hand grazed his face. I knew right away…I went over to apologize to him, and you guys see what happened after that. Definitely accidental…definitely not that type of player. I hated to see that, what escalated after that.”

LeBron acknowledged that his ejection was “warranted … because of what happened after that,” and understood why he couldn't remain in the game following such an intense kerfuffle. However, he was not happy about missing his annual trip to Madison Square Garden as the Lakers fell to the Knicks, 106-100.

The NBA suspended LeBron for “initiating an on-court altercation,” which is technically true but probably a bit unfair to put on LeBron. As he noted, LeBron tried to apologize right away and has no history of dirty play nor escalating on-court skirmishes.

“Everyone in the league knows LeBron’s not a dirty guy,” Anthony Davis said Sunday. “A soon as he did it, he looked back at him like, ‘Oh, my bad. I didn’t try to do it.'”

James' “swim move” was reckless, but not malicious.

“The suspension, I didn’t think that was warranted,” he said. (I agreed.)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ZkB0Afb0eKhGDSO3sDGR4?si=eb30a01903fc461f

James reportedly tried to seek out Stewart after the game to apologize. Evidently, he was not successful.

When asked on Wednesday if he had spoken to the Pistons big-man, LeBron cut off the reporter before he finished the question: “No.”