Tony Allen fined $5000 for supposed flop

CBS Sports

Tony Allen, guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, most definitely got fouled. Flagrantly fouled, actually.

But he still flopped. And the league is nailing him for the move against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals on Tuesday night.

The league announced Friday that Allen has been fined $5,000 for violating the anti-flopping policy. There are no warnings in the postseason, with the first offense being a $5,000 fine.

In the fourth quarter in San Antonio, Allen was about to lay the ball in, but Manu Ginobili grabbed his arm and pulled him to the floor -- a fairly dangerous play that was called a Flagrant 1 and upheld after video review.

The league defines flopping as "any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player." Allen didn't flop on the contact, though. Where Allen flopped was in his selling of the foul. He pretended to have fallen on his head, immediately grabbing it and writhing on the floor in apparent pain. With sports leagues taking such a careful approach with head injuries, Allen's acting job was an obvious attempt to draw the flagrant call at a very critical stage of the game.

I'm a big Tony Allen fan so my opinion might be a bit biased (I'm also a big Manu fan for what it's worth), but I think this fine is BS. The idea that you need to fall on your head to hurt your head is not true first of all. Secondly, the whole fine a guy for flopping thing is basically a way to cover shoddy NBA officiating. "Oh no, the poor 3 blind mice were tricked and bamboozled!" Then you have Jeff Van Gundy and his flopping soap box that he's been getting on for years now. I feel like if he doesn't go on one of his flopping tangents the NBA doesn't fine TA here. Lastly, Manu is a fantastic, seasoned flopper. The greats respect one another. Switch places and I'm sure Manu does the same thing.