In the fourth quarter of San Antonio’s 93-89 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 4 of their first-round series, Mavs forward DeJuan Blair was ejected for kicking Spurs forward Tiago Splitter in the head.
There was a shade over three minutes remaining when a scramble ended with the ball in Splitter’s hands. Almost immediately after catching the ball and attempting to move towards the hoop, Tiago collided with Blair and both big men fell. After the crash, Blair was knocked down towards Splitter’s feet. When Blair was attempting to extricate himself, he can be clearly seen kicking Splitter in the face.
Whether it was an intentional kick is unknown, but we doubt he purposely tried to smash Splitter’s face with his sneaker at such an important moment in the game when it was obvious Splitter hadn’t intended ill-will towards Blair when they fell.
Blair was 5-for-5 from the field at the time with 12 points and 11 rebounds. He had spearheaded Dallas’ second-half comeback against his former team and the Mavs led 83-82 when he was awarded a technical foul and ejected for the kick.
With the win, (Boris Diaw hit a monster go-ahead three-pointer at the top of the key in the final minute) San Antonio evened up the series, 2-2, and got back home-court advantage after splitting their first two games in San Antonio. A decisive Game 5 will take place back in San Antonio at AT&T Center on Wednesday night.
(H/T SI.com)
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