Miami Heat series with Indiana Pacers one step from getting ugly - MiamiHerald.com

Casual fans of basketball think of it as a “pretty” sport, according to Dwyane Wade.

The coaches wear suits, the celebrities wear sunglasses. The magnificently muscled athletes soar like trapeze artists and glide like ballroom dancers.

But don’t let the slo-mo replays fool you. Basketball can be ugly.

“It’s a very physical sport,” Wade said Wednesday after practice, fingering a jagged red cut above his right eyebrow.

The damage was inflicted by Tyler Hansbrough on Tuesday night when he went up to block a shot by Wade and came down with his hands raking across Wade’s scalp.

“Obviously, my face is not the ball,” Wade said after the Heat trampled the Indiana Pacers 115-83 to take a 3-2 lead in their playoff series. “I thought it was uncalled for. No one likes to see their own blood.”

Shortly thereafter, Udonis Haslem â€" who had seen his own blood in Game 4 when he absorbed an elbow from Lou Amundson â€" delivered some vigilante justice to Hansbrough by clobbering him with two outstretched arms. Obviously, Hansbrough’s face is not the ball, but Haslem declared â€" none too convincingly â€" that he was trying for a block or deflection.

Right, and Mike Tyson was trying to whisper in Evander Holyfield’s ear when he bit a chunk out of it.

The NBA reviewed the play Wednesday and changed the foul call on Haslem from a Flagrant One to a Flagrant Two, which means Haslem will be suspended for Game 6 in Indianapolis on Thursday night. Had officials called it as a Flagrant Two on Tuesday, Haslem would have been ejected but would be back in uniform for Game 6.

Heat reserve center Dexter Pittman, who had the audacity to wink after elbowing Lance Stephenson in the neck, was suspended for three games. Hansbrough’s foul on Wade was also upgraded to a Flagrant Two, but because he appeared to be going for the ball, he won’t miss the Pacers’ chance to tie the series.

What’s next in this contentious showdown? A head-butt like the one Zinedine Zidane administered to Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup final, which France lost after Zidane was sent off. Maybe it’s time for red cards in basketball.

NBA commissioner David Stern had no choice but to punish Haslem and Pittman. They were lucky it wasn’t worse. Pittman’s foul, which sent Stephenson to the X-ray room, was arguably as malicious as Metta World Peace’s elbow to the head of James Harden, who sustained a concussion. World Peace was suspended seven games.

Stern doesn’t want to see the NBA sink to the level of the NFL, where the bounty scandal and the concussion issue have cast football in a mean, inhumane light.

Nor can Stern allow the NBA playoffs to devolve into the mayhem that hurt the early part of the NHL playoffs. The NHL didn’t react quickly, but it did react correctly by ordering a 25-game suspension of Phoenix enforcer Raffi Torres for going after the head of Chicago’s Marian Hossa.

There is no place for goons in sports today, not when the athletes are bigger, stronger, faster and able to inflict long-lasting damage.

Haslem wasn’t trying to injure Hansbrough, but he took his payback role too seriously.

“People are banging out there, but nobody is trying to take anybody out,” Haslem said. Half the white of his right eye was blood red. Behind him, taped to his locker, was a motivational essay: “A warrior has only one true friend, only one man he can rely on â€" himself.”

Is the warrior stuff really necessary? Among adults? Who are not MMA cartoon characters?

Wade said he admired the way Shaquille O’Neal used to take blow after blow and not lose his temper or his concentration. LeBron James has not let Danny Granger â€" assessed three technical fouls â€" rattle him. Both said they’d like to see Granger play Thursday, despite a twisted ankle, because they hate when teams lean on excuses.

“There’s still something inside me from the Kentucky game when they said Keith Bogans wasn’t 100 percent,” Wade said with a laugh of Marquette’s victory over the Wildcats.

If anything, the bruising nature of this series has dispelled the notion of Miami as the glamour team. This is a team Pat Riley and Alonzo Mourning can be proud of.

Instead it was Pacers president Larry Bird bemoaning, “I can’t believe my team went soft. S-O-F-T.”

There will be nothing soft about Game 6. But keep it clean.