Dennis Schröder believes Devin Booker would be suspended in regular season for Flagrant-2 in Game 3

As the Lakers were wrapping up their Game 3 victory over the Phoenix Suns, things finally reached a boiling point between the two teams, who have had just about enough of each other already. Dennis Schröder and Devin Booker had been talking trash back and forth all game, and as the clock wound down towards an inevitable Lakers win, Booker got physical, shoving Schröder as he knifed into the lane to attempt a layup.

Schröder, off-balance and mid-air, was then knocked the rest of the way to the ground by Suns forward Jae Crowder. He responded by doing knuckle pushups as Booker and Crowder were ejected. Booker would have fouled out anyway, but was assessed a Flagrant 2 for not coming anywhere close to making a play on the ball.

Here is video of the exchange:

After the game, multiple members of the Lakers called out Booker’s cheap shot as uncalled for:

For his part, Schröder said that plays like that are just part of the playoffs, but added that he thinks Booker would be suspended if he had done this in a regular season game, and implied that he felt the foul was a result of Booker being “too sensitive” over the trash talk the two were exchanging:

This now marks the second time in three games that the Lakers have felt like a foul the Suns committed crossed the line, with the first being Chris Paul’s “dangerous” undercut and arm pull of LeBron James. And it comes in the midst a series that has already seen Suns head coach Monty Williams publicly complain about the whistle his team is getting as Paul implies that referee Scott Foster and the NBA are rigging games against him.

In short: Things are getting testy.

Will Booker get suspended? It seems unlikely, which to be fair, Schröder seemed to understand, given his comment on the situation. While Booker’s foul was dangerous and reckless, no one got hurt, and the outcome of the series shouldn’t tilt on frustrations boiling over.

If Booker takes a cheap shot again, that’s a different conversation, but for now, this just appears to be a bit of chippiness between two scrappy and physical teams. We’ll see if things calm down from here, but it seems unlikely. Get ready for a longer war of words — and more battles on the court — as this series continues.

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