Al Horford, Josh Smith Don't Think Blake Griffin Foul Was Excessive

February 5 2011 Last updated at 10:37 PM ET

If you missed it Friday night, Blake Griffin sent Al Horford to the deck with a hard foul in the closing seconds of what would turn out to be a 101-100 win for the Hawks. Horford was on his way to the basket for the game tying points when Blake Griffin determined he would make Atlanta's All-Star center earn the win at the line.

This is all a very bland way of saying what Matt Moore said much more colorfully over at Pro Basketball Talk:

In a development that's certain not to spark useless debates between people regarding the words "excessive," "soft," and "good hard fouls," Blake Griffin fouled the ever loving mercy out of Al Horford on a last second game-winning drive attempt. Griffin went straight up, kind of, rose both arms to block the shot, made a play on the ball, then made contact, demolished Horford into pieces, then followed through with his arms all the way to the floor.

Griffin was assessed a flagrant foul, and Horford hit the pair of free throws to seal the win. Video of the whole incident is embedded at the bottom of this post.

As Moore alluded to, the discussion of whether the foul was too hard or the league too soft was inevitable. But maybe that discussion can just be muted because the Atlanta Hawks don't seem too concerned.

"It happened too fast, I didn't even get a chance to gather myself," Horford said before Saturday night's 99-92 win against the Wizards. "It's just unfortunate. It wasn't a dirty play or anything. He was making a play on the ball, you can't fault him for that."

Josh Smith was even more blunt: "He couldn't let him just have a wide-open dunk."

But even if the foul was not intentional, it was hard. Enough for Horford to sit out Saturday, although he said he expected to only miss one game. Smith said "it took guts" for Horford to step up and knock down those free throws, even without taking into account the pressure of the situation.

So how hard was it to knock those shots down? Well, Horford was just happy to get the chance. He said initially he didn't know if he was going to be able to make it to the line.

"I was just hoping that I was able to just get up and just walk it off," he said. "At that point, I thought I was just going to leave the game. But once I was able to get up, and I felt fine, I was good after that."

Source: http://nba.fanhouse.com/2011/02/05/al-horford-josh-smith-dont-think-blake-griffin-foul-was-excess/

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