Flagrant Foul Gets Oakley Suspended

Forward Charles Oakley of the New York Knicks was suspended for one game by the NBA on Saturday for a flagrant foul against Orlando’s Bo Outlaw.

Oakley struck Outlaw across the head with 3:03 remaining in Friday night’s 99-83 New York victory over the Magic.

The foul was labeled “a flagrant foul two” and gave Oakley a total of six flagrant foul points for the season--an automatic one-game suspension. A flagrant foul one will result in another one-game suspension, then anything beyond seven flagrant foul points will mean a two-game ban.

The suspension means Oakley will miss tonight’s home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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Miami Heat forward Jamal Mashburn will have surgery today on his fractured right thumb and is expected to miss at least a month.

The Heat should know by late afternoon whether Mashburn will miss only one month or the rest of the season.

“I don’t know of another NBA player who has had this injury,” trainer Ron Culp told The Miami Herald.

Mashburn, Miami’s third-leading scorer with 15.2 points per game, went up for a dunk over Detroit’s Brian Williams in the Heat’s 100-86 victory over the Pistons Friday night. He came down hard on his right hand, fracturing the thumb.

Miami will now intensify efforts to acquire a proven scorer by Thursday’s trade deadline. But coach Pat Riley said that a trade for Sacramento’s Mitch Richmond isn’t likely.

“If that trade was going to be made, it would have been made two months ago,” Riley said. “There was never going to be one unless the names radically changed, and they never changed.”