Stephen A. Smith Rips Critics of Missed Knicks Call

"Nobody is saying that it's not a foul," Smith said on Monday's edition of "First Take." "But the point is, oh my God, a call was missed! I mean, stop the presses, it’s never happened before in basketball history!"

While there was no call against Hart on the floor, official David Guthrie ruled that there should've been a whistle in the aftermath. The Last Two-Minute Report released on Monday concurred, labeling the Hart-Hardaway interaction the only incorrect call within the final stanzas.

Smith, who partly compared the incident to Scottie Pippen's controversial foul on Hubert Davis in the Knicks' 1994 postseason showdown with the Chicago Bulls, admitted that there was "no question" that Hardaway was fouled. But that the lack of call, he continued, was fully consistent with the way the rest of the game was policed.

"In the first three games of this series, 46 fouls were called," Smith said. "[In Game 3], it was like 34 ... seventeen apiece. They were letting them play all game long. That's the one thing we can't ignore in all of this: there was consistency in that regard. It wasn't like they were calling this and then all of a sudden they missed that call. I saw plenty of plays on both ends on the floor where cats were getting mugged and said officials 'y'all playing today.'"

Smith readily admitted that he would not have the "same energy" if he was a Pistons fan when queried by host Molly Qerim, but he does have a point about the physicality: the Knicks-Pistons bout has been one of the more bruising matchups to date and the 34 fouls frankly might've seemed low in the eyes of some viewers.

“Yeah I think it’s important,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said of the physicality after Game 3 of the series, per Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “I think a big part of winning is your defense, your rebounding and keeping your turnovers down. That puts you in position to win. So we always talk about the last part of the play, you have to be the strongest."