This is some dirty stuff right here. In the second quarter of Thursday night’s Game 3 in the 76ers-Raptors series, Kyle Lowry boxed out Ben Simmons on the defensive glass, and Simmons toppled to the floor along the baseline. With Lowry teetering over him, Simmons threw an angry elbow directly to Lowry’s tender bits:
Because the action was headed quickly the other way, officials failed to notice the low blow, and Simmons was not penalized. These two players have a little bit of a history—last January they agreed to meet in the tunnel for fisticuffs after both players were ejected in the last ten seconds of a regular-season game. This new escalation of hostilities may not end in the tunnel, but if the NBA determines Simmons’ rude elbow was worth a flagrant foul, he’d be moved closer to the mandatory one-game suspension that comes from accruing three “points” in the playoffs.