.@SoloHill leaps over @smart_MS3 for the slam but gets called for the charge. #Celtics Rewind is pres. by @NissanUSA https://t.co/KDW1SYgTls
— NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSBoston) November 15, 2016
Solomon Hill showed us on Monday night that sometimes taking a charge isn’t worth getting humiliated. Hill delivered a vicious dunk over Marcus Smart that saw the Boston Celtics’ guard get thrown to the floor as the Pelicans forward got up and over for the slam.
Hill took flight with three minutes left in the second quarter, eying up Smart and driving right at him to the hoop. The dunk sent Smart sprawling to the floor and Hill into basketball immortality, another poster for the digital walls of the internet’s childhood bedroom. Officials called the charge, however, saying Hill’s thigh contacted Smart’s head.
Maybe that’s why it looked like he was melting into the floor on the play.
Even the CSN New England announcers disagreed with the call, understanding the righteousness of the dunk outweighs any sanctity of the NBA rule book. That dunk was awesome. At the very least, it counts in my heart.
Look at it again. Was Smart ever really guarding Hill? Or has he always been doing an elaborate limbo over the floor, out of position and out of chances to ever recover from having a 6-foot-7 man leap over your entire being?
It was Hill’s first foul of the game. But we know what really happened here. The video doesn’t lie.
