The story of the New York Knicks‘ Game 3 loss will center around Mitchell Robinson‘s injury. And rightfully so, as Joel Embiid‘s Flagrant 1 foul threatens to sideline him indefinitely.
Robinson took the full brunt of Embiid’s weight on his left ankle in the second quarter, and was ruled out of the game at halftime.
The play sparked a ton of controversy online, and a number of current and former players chimed in.
Including former Knicks’ first-round pick, Immanuel Quickley, now a member of the Toronto Raptors.
On an April 26 episode of “Run It Back” on FanDuelTV, the New York fan favorite was asked about the Embiid, Robinson run-in.
“I ain’t trying to get fined,” Quickley told Michelle Beadle and co-hosts. “I don’t know if I still can. But if that was anybody else, I don’t know if he’d get the same call.”
Quickley is still a beloved figure in the Big Apple, after being traded for OG Anunoby mid-season. Joel Embiid, on the other hand…
Knicks Call Out Embiid
Knicks players didn’t hold back after Game 3 when asked about the play that resulted in a hobbled Mitchell Robinson.
Donte DiVincenzo told reporters it was a dirty play, through and through.
“It was dirty,” DiVincenzo said to Stefon Bondy of the New York Post. “It was dirty.”
Josh Hart didn’t take as direct a shot at Embiid as DiVincenzo. But he did acknowledge the recklessness of the play.
“We’re just happy Mitch didn’t get a serious injury on that” Hart told Bondy. “I’m all for tough fouls, tough, playoff fouls, but that’s something that can put a guy out for a significant amount of time. So we’re lucky he didn’t get seriously hurt during that time.”
Head coach Tom Thibodeau thinks Embiid should have been called for two flagrant fouls. He implied as much when he was asked about the flagrant foul from Game 3.
“Which one? The one they called, or the one they didn’t call? Just want to make sure we have clarity on that,” Thibs said to SNY.
New York’s coach is referring to a play from the first quarter when Embiid kneed Isaiah Hartenstein in the groin area. It was called an offensive foul.
Hartenstein himself told SNY after the game that Embiid’s Flagrant 1 play didn’t belong on a basketball court.
“It’s not a basketball play,” Hartenstein told reporters.
Refs Explanation for Flagrant Call
Following the third game of the New York, Philadelphia series, lead official Zach Zarba was asked about the controversial foul play.
He told Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer that the ruling was a unanimous one among officials.
“In that situation, the crew gets together, we go and review the foul,” Zarba told Pompey for the NBA’s official Pool Report on April 26. “In this instance, the crew was unanimous along with the replay center official in Secaucus that this foul was unncessary but did not rise to the level of a flagrant 2. The unnecessary contact rose to the level of a flagrant 1 but we were unanimous that this did not rise to the level of excessive contact, unnecessary and excessive, which would have been a flagrant 2 ejection. That’s why we kept it a flagrant 1.”
Mitchell Robinson’s status for Game 4 is up in air, but you’d be hard pressed to find a New York Knicks fan who thinks he’ll be back for the next matchup at Wells Fargo Center.
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