Pistons’ Isaiah Stewart in the face of LeBron James: ‘I don’t feel it was an accident’

Isaiah Stewart returns to the Detroit Pistons for their game against the Los Angeles Clippers the following Friday suspending two matches for his actions during a skirmish with Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James. During Sunday’s game between the Pistons and Lakers, James hit Stewart in the face and Stewart didn’t appreciate it. He continued to chase James despite being held back by his teammates, staff and referee. He was finally restrained and everything was back to normal.

James was flagged as a Flagrant-2 foul for this incident, which resulted in an automatic disqualification, and Stewart was also sent off after making two technical fouls for unsportsmanlike behavior during the melee. James was later suspended for one game by NBA, and Stewart was suspended for two games.

James still maintains that the hit was accidental, but Stewart doesn’t see it as such. While speaking to members of the media about the incident for the first time, Stewart made it clear that he thought it was on purpose and he added that he would not be dealing with the situation anymore.

“This will be the last time I deal with that,” Stewart said. “I’ve seen the movie. Personally, like I said, I don’t feel it was an accident. But this is the last time I deal with that. My main focus right now is on teammates and go back to playing basketball. I’m not going to let that define who I am. I’m going to let what Detroit drafts for me define who I am.”

You can see Stewart’s comment below:

Here’s what James had to say about the elbow:

“There was a punch on the free throw. His elbow was a bit high, it made me – if you look, if you watch the movie – it threw me off balance a bit, and his elbow lifted the wing. My arm was up, and I was basically trying to swim, swim down on his arm, and when I swung down his arm, he lost his balance and the left side of my hand grazed. I got past him, and I knew right away, so I knew right away what part of his head I had. So I went to apologize to him, and obviously you’ve seen these things. what happened after that. But it was definitely by accident.”

James also added that he don’t think he should be suspended through the incident. Obviously the two players still don’t look at each other on the matter, but now that both suspensions have been served, both can put the situation behind them and move on.