The NBA has suspended Houston Rockets guard Marcus Smart three games without pay for throwing a punch that hit Golden State Warriors center Charles Bassey in the face, the league announced on Thursday. The suspension was issued by James Jones, the NBA’s executive vice president and head of basketball operations, in a release carried on NBA.com.
Smart begins serving it on Friday, when Houston hosts the Utah Jazz, and will also miss the Rockets’ games at the Washington Wizards on Sunday and at the Miami Heat on Monday, The Associated Press reported. The AP put the forfeited salary at roughly $125,500. The league’s release names only the first game.
The punch came with 21 seconds left in the third quarter of Houston’s 115-108 win over Golden State on Wednesday night at Toyota Center. Officials reviewed the play, assessed Smart a flagrant foul 2 and ejected him, as covered in SES’s report on the ejection. Bassey told reporters afterward that Smart had been “playing dirty” and called the punch “fake, fake toughness,” per the AP. Rockets coach Ime Udoka said Smart told him the two had gotten tangled up and that Bassey had said, “What you gonna do?”
The release says nothing about Bassey, and no discipline for him has been announced. Smart was suspended one game in 2015, while with the Boston Celtics, for hitting Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs in the groin, and one game in 2021 for directing threatening language at a game official, per the AP, which also noted he has been fined at least 12 other times.
For the Warriors, the ruling closes the incident. The league has not said whether Smart or the Rockets will appeal, and Golden State’s next game is Friday’s NBA Cup group-play meeting with the San Antonio Spurs.
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