Isaiah Stewart returned to the Detroit Pistons for their game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday after serving a two-game suspension for his actions during an altercation with Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James. During the game between the Pistons and Lakers on Sunday, James hit Stewart in the face, and Stewart didn’t appreciate it. He proceeded to go after James despite being held back by teammates, staffers and referees. Eventually he was restrained and things settled back down.
James was assessed a Flagrant-2 foul for the incident, which resulted in an automatic ejection, and Stewart was also ejected after getting two technical fouls for unsportsmanlike conduct during the melee. James was then suspended for one game by the NBA, and Stewart was served with a two-game suspension.
James has maintained that the hit was accidental, but Stewart doesn’t see it that way. While speaking with media members about the incident for the first time, Stewart made it clear that he thought it was purposeful, and he added that he wouldn’t again be addressing the situation.
“This is going to be my last time addressing it,” Stewart said. “I watched the film. Me personally, like I said, I didn’t feel like it was an accident. But this is my last time addressing it. My main focus right now is on my teammates and getting back to playing basketball. I’m not going to let that define who I am. I’m going to let what Detroit drafted me for define who I am.”
You can see Stewart’s comments below:
Here’s what James had to say about the elbow:
“There was a boxout on the free throw line. His elbow got kind of high, it got me — if you look, if you watch the film — it got me off balanced a little bit, and his elbow lifted my arm, and I basically tried to swim move, swim down on him, on his arm. And when I swung down on his arm, he got off balance and the left side of my hand grazed his face. And I knew right away. So, I knew right away I had caught some part of his head. So, I went over to apologize to him, and obviously, you guys saw what happened after that. But definitely accidental.”
James also added that he didn’t think that he should have been suspended over the incident. Clearly the two players still don’t see eye-to-eye on the matter, but now that both suspensions have been served both can put the situation behind them and move on.
