A minute later, Utah's Mehmet Okur powers up to the basket, gets clotheslined by Jason Richardson and crashes to the floor on his tailbone.

As much as it scared the Jazz to see their center hit the court hard, Jazz forward Carlos Boozer said he was OK with Richardson's actions. But Davis' hit? That's a different story.

The difference in the two instances straddles the line between what many players consider good old-fashioned basketball and downright dirty cheap shots.

"It's not a fine line, it's a thick line," Boozer said. "You play hard, you play to win, you foul out, that is part of basketball. But to elbow somebody in the head in transition? For what? You don't have to. He didn't even have the ball. To me that is unwarranted.

"People forget when Jerry [Sloan] played, if you tried to dunk, they'd take your legs out. I understand that play [Richardson's foul]. But the Fish play, that blows my mind. Especially because it didn't have anything to do with the play, the ball is on the other side of the court. . . . I'm sorry, I have a problem with that."

Apparently league officials felt the same way.

They are reviewing tape of the incident - no foul was called, but play was halted to tend to Fisher - and could hand down a flagrant foul penalty or, less likely, suspend Davis today. Davis contends the hit was unintentional.

The league opted not to suspend Richardson. Richardson, who was ejected and slapped with a flagrant foul penalty two for contact deemed unnecessary and excessive, felt the play remained in the confines of what playoff basketball is all about.

"It's a hard foul," Richardson said. "It wasn't a dirty play. I didn't try to take his legs out, I didn't try to kick him in the head. I went for the ball. That's part of basketball. It's a hard foul."

Golden State coach Don Nelson apologized to Sloan for Richardson's actions Sunday.

"I don't condone hard fouls," Nelson said. "I don't do it in the playoffs, I don't do it in the regular season. What I do is counter. It's like a baseball manager. If somebody throws at my batter, I'll throw at his batter. If they haven't hard fouled us, I'm not going to hard foul them.

"It's just that that particular play, it kind of got away from us, and J.R.'s a great guy. Wouldn't really do anything to hurt anybody, but sometimes you know you foul hard and you take a fall and it's too bad. I just wanted Jerry to know I was sorry about the incident and I don't condone that, really."

Ahh, it's playoff basketball time, when everything, including the nature of the play, gets magnified and turned up a notch. Hard fouls get harder and players with shady reputations can become full-fledged bad boys.

San Antonio's Bruce Bowen has been accused of being a dirty player in the past and his actions in the Spurs-Suns series certainly have added to that reputation. In Game 2, he kicked Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire as he was going up to dunk. No foul was called, but Stoudemire complained afterward that Bowen was going for his Achilles' tendon.

Other players have complained in the past that Bowen steps under shooters' feet so they come down and sprain their ankles, or at least worry about that possibility as they go up to shoot rather than concentrating on the shot itself.

In Game 3 he drove his knee into the groin of Phoenix's Steve Nash, a play that prompted a review by the league.

"Bruce is very good at what he does," Boozer said. "His sole purpose is to get in the head of the other team's best player or players. He does a great job of putting the other person's mind somewhere else."

Running the risk of injuring a player is unnecessary, say most players and coaches. Even if it means finding yourself on the wrong end of a highlight-reel moment, as Andrei Kirilenko did in Game 3.

"I could nail him, I could really hurt him and could jump into him and I didn't," Kirilenko said, referring to Davis' fourth-quarter dunk. "I don't think that is the way to win the game, if you foul hard, foul hard but don't hurt each other. It's a career that could get hurt with injury."

Bring on the physical play, Boozer said, just leave out the cheap shots.

"It's the playoffs," he said. "Teams are fighting for their basketball lives. Everybody is trying to get to the Western Conference Finals. You can expect a physical dogfight."

lwodraska@sltrib.com