NBA rules on Rip: Flagrant one, no suspension

Just got word from the NBA that Rip Hamilton’s foul with 9:59 left in the fourth quarter of Game 1 – when he got his elbow up and ran into Kevin Garnett – has been upgraded to a flagrant one foul. Flagrant one is a lesser offense than a flagrant two foul, which results in an automatic ejection.

Had the NBA deemed Hamilton’s foul a flagrant two after the fact, it could have suspended him for Game 2. You might remember that Antonio McDyess was given a flagrant two foul in the Pistons’ Game 5 loss to Cleveland in the 2007 conference finals. Probably because he was ejected from that game, the NBA did not suspend him for Game 6. But because Hamilton was only whistled for a personal foul against Garnett and not ejected, had the NBA ruled it a flagrant two foul there’s a pretty decent chance he would have been suspended for tonight’s game.

So that’s the first bit of good news for the Pistons, who when they put their feet up Wednesday night and watched Game 1 of the Western Conference finals probably empathized with both teams – the Lakers for the difficulties of stepping into such a frenzied environment after extended inactivity, the Spurs for the travails a road team faces in opening a conference finals in the other guy’s building.

And I couldn’t help thinking: Game 1 of the Western finals is what Game 1 of the Eastern finals probably would have looked like if it had been played at The Palace instead of in Boston.

The Lakers were clearly out of sync, falling 20 points behind the Spurs midway through the third quarter. The Spurs were clearly running on fumes, allowing the Lakers to chop 75 percent of that seemingly safe cushion away in a matter of a few minutes.

The Pistons had an even longer layoff than the Lakers, seven days to LA’s five. The Spurs had an even tougher turnaround than the Celtics, who at least got to sleep in their own beds after winning Game 7 and practice in their own building the next day. The Spurs spent a restless night in an airplane, took off late for a long flight to the Coast and essentially lost a valuable day between games.

My guess is if the Spurs hosted Game 1, the Lakers would have had the same difficulty mounting a comeback even after shaking off the rust before a San Antonio home crowd, which would have given the Spurs enough of an emotional boost to hold off the LA surge even through their fatigue.

In a series between two evenly matched teams, Game 1 often doesn’t tell us much. It takes both teams that first game to size up the other and the circumstances, then digest it and figure out where to go from there starting with Game 2. Tonight should be a truer reflection of what we can expect from the rest of the series than Game 1, just as my guess is that San Antonio isn’t likely to take a 20-point second-half lead in Los Angeles for Game 2 – or blow it if they manage to do it again.

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