Marcus Smart Threw a Punch at Charles Bassey and Got Himself Ejected

Marcus Smart did not need the review to know. With 21 seconds left in the third quarter at Toyota Center, during a stoppage after he and Charles Bassey had tangled under the rim boxing out and jawed at each other on the way up the floor, Smart squared up and threw a right-handed hook at the Golden State center's face.

The punch grazed Bassey's nose. Bassey snapped his head back just in time to keep it from landing flush, one official grabbed him and pulled him clear, and players from both teams poured in around Smart. Officials reviewed the sequence with the NBA Replay Center and came back with the only verdict available: a flagrant foul 2, and an automatic ejection. Smart walked straight to the locker room.

"You didn't even need to tell him, he knew he was gone," Doris Burke said on the ESPN broadcast. "That's absolutely a punch."

Bassey, who was not disciplined at all for his part in the exchange, made one of the two flagrant free throws. Smart's night ended there: six points on two made three-pointers, two rebounds and an assist off Houston's bench, in a game Houston led 84-76 when he swung. It was the 13th ejection of his career, according to Bleacher Report, which is its own kind of biography. Smart has built a long career — including a Defensive Player of the Year award, as only the third guard in league history to win it — on playing right up against a line. Wednesday night he stepped over it in front of everybody.

The strange part is how little Houston needed him to do it. The Rockets led this game for 97 percent of it and never trailed, per ESPN. Golden State lost Stephen Curry six minutes in: Curry hit a 28-foot three, grabbed at his right side as he backpedaled, and went to the locker room, ruled out with right abdominal soreness. He finished with three points on a night he came in averaging 30.6, second in the league. Houston ran out to a 35-20 lead after one quarter and spent the rest of the evening answering runs.

Kevin Durant scored 20. Alperen Sengun finished with 19 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Amen Thompson, who had two points at halftime, scored 15 in the third quarter on 7-of-7 shooting. Golden State kept coming anyway — rookie Yaxel Lendeborg put up 25 points and 10 rebounds, Brandin Podziemski added 22 — and when Georges Niang and De'Anthony Melton cut it to 88-85 early in the fourth, the game was suddenly one Houston could lose. Reed Sheppard settled it, hitting all three of his three-pointers in a span of about two and a half minutes, and Fred VanVleet, who scored 18 and finished a game-best plus-25, helped close the door. Final: Houston 115, Golden State 108. The Warriors' eight-game winning streak, built after an 0-3 start, is over. Houston is 9-3 and has won two straight; Golden State falls to 8-4.

What happens next is not up to either team. A flagrant 2 ends a player's night, but it does not by itself suspend him — any further discipline is a separate call by the league office, and a thrown punch is the category of play that office has always treated most seriously. The clip was everywhere within the hour, and fans were already calling for a suspension before the fourth quarter ended. Smart, in the first season of the two-year, $12.4 million deal he signed with Houston this past offseason, gave the league an easy file to open: the angle is clean, the intent is hard to argue, and the contact, however slight, was confirmed by the officials who reviewed it.

Houston hosts Utah on Friday, and whether Smart is available for it is now a waiting game. Golden State's five-game road trip moves on to San Antonio the same night, carrying a bigger question of its own in Curry's side. The Rockets survived Smart's swing on Wednesday. Whether it costs him a game — or more — is the league's call, and it is the only part of this story still unwritten.