Late in the Nuggets' 114-105 Tuesday night win over the Spurs, it appeared as if LaMarcus Aldridge punched Gary Harris in his, well his nuggets.
Just under the two-minute mark in the fourth quarter, Harris goes to set a screen. Aldridge attempts to fight off this screen, and in the process we see Harris go down, clutching his private area. He struggled to run back to the other side of the court, still holding his privates, so he was clearly in pain.
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Thankfully there were plenty of replays available on this play to find out what happened. We'll go through each of them to try and come up with a conclusion as to what actually happened between these two.
LaMarcus Aldridge vs. Garry Harris: Angle 1
Here is the very first angle we all saw on the broadcast.
This all happens very fast, so we need to pause the film and slowly play it to try and see what's happening. When we do this, we see what appears to be Aldridge winding up his right arm, and then swinging it towards Harris' no-no area.
But it's still too far away. We know what this looks like, but there's no definitive proof that was an actual punch.
Aldridge's hand disappears behind his body so we can't see where it lands. But that's where Angle 2 comes into play.
LaMarcus Aldridge vs. Garry Harris: Angle 2
Here, we can see exactly where Aldridge's hand lands, and it's not on Harris' privates.
From this angle it looks like Aldridge did nothing wrong. He just fought off a screen, as he's supposed to do as a defender. So can we put down the pitchforks? Not exactly. Because even though we can rule out Aldridge punching Harris with his right hand, it still doesn't explain why Harris went down.
Clearly something happened here. And thankfully Angle 3 shows it.
LaMarcus Aldridge vs. Garry Harris: Angle 3
We spent all this time focusing on Aldridge's right hand, when we should have been watching his left.
While his right was focused on trying to swim past Harris, his left clearly gave Harris a little love tap.
Conclusion
It's hard to know whether the NBA will take action on this. If nothing else, the video deserves to be analyzed by the league. Hitting an opponent in the groin is punishable, and action has been taken in the past. In 2016, Dahntay Jones was suspended after punching Bismack Boyombo in the groin.
Joe Ingles, however, had a less severe punishment. He was just fined $15,000 by the league for "making contact to the groin area."
So the punishment by the league will depend on how seriously it determines Aldridge's intent was. If he ends up being suspended, it would make a huge impact in the rest of the series between the Spurs and Nuggets, currently tied at 1-1.
UPDATE: Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Wednesday he doesn't believe Aldridge's hit was intentional. But he did say the team was in contact with the league about the incident.
“It was sent to me from the truck in different feeds in slow motion,” Malone said, via the Denver Post. “I will say this. I think we sent it (to the NBA) as an organization. Having had a chance to coach LaMarcus at the All-Star Game, I do not think he’s a dirty player. I don’t see that in his game. I think it was an accident, I think it was unfortunate. I don’t think there was any malicious intent there. That’s not who LaMarcus Aldridge is.
“If there was a windup, if there was something that looked really deliberate, that’d be different, but from what I saw, and I didn’t spend much time looking at it, obviously who cares what I think? It all comes down to what the NBA thinks. In watching it, obviously Gary was unfortunately the recipient of that accidental blow but I didn’t see it as something that was premeditated or done with the intent to hurt Gary.”
