Should Chris Paul's groin shot to Ben McLemore been reviewed? James Harden certainly thinks so.
Speaking to the media following the Rockets 119-107 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Harden was not happy that the play wasn't reviewed.
“I don’t know what it was [intentional or not] but it should have been reviewed, especially if somebody gets hit in their private area. We ain’t got nowhere to go. It wasn’t [reviewed] & I don’t know why not.” Harden said.
The play occurred with 1:20 left in the game. Paul was called for an offensive foul, but Harden, as well as Rockets head coach Mike D'Antoni felt the play should have been reviewed for the potential of a flagrant foul call. D'Antoni was so indignant that the referees weren't reviewing the play that he incurred a technical foul in the process of arguing for the play to be reviewed.
“I don’t know. Who knows,” D’Antoni said when asked if he thought the league would review the incident. “I asked the referee to just go over and review it. I didn’t have a clear (look.) But I know my guy got hit in a bad place with an elbow, so go look at it. But it’s not like in the bubble … there must be entertainment going on somewhere because what else do we have to do? Let’s go over, look at it, come back and play basketball.”
The league could possibly review the play and come down with a retroactive punishment for Paul. Commissioner Adam Silver has not made any indication of whether he will do so or not.
Paul claimed the contact was incidental.
“I tried to get by him,” Paul said. “It was incidental. I know when I did it on purpose, that was in college. That was a long time ago. I checked on Ben, he said he was fine. I know Mike. He's gonna get mad, he's gonna yell and scream.”
This win was the first of the series for Chris Paul and the Thunder. The Rockets now lead the series 2-1. Game four is Monday at 4 PM ET on TNT.
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