National Basketball Association

Tech suspension in finale would carry to 2011-12

Published Mar. 31, 2011 4:52 a.m. ET

foxsports

Players reaching the technical foul limit in their last game of the regular season would have to serve a one-game suspension to open next season.

League leader Dwight Howard, New York's Amare Stoudemire and Charlotte's Stephen Jackson are all one technical away from a one-game ban. It would not affect their playoff status if it came in the regular-season finale, but league spokesman Tim Frank said Wednesday it would carry over to 2011-12.

Players have to sit after accumulating 16 techs, then again for every second technical after that. Howard already missed one game, then picked up his league-leading 17th on Monday in a loss at New York.

Boston sat Kendrick Perkins in its final game last season because he had 15, and coach Doc Rivers wouldn't chance playing him because the Celtics didn't know what would happen if he got No. 16, saying the league office told them it had never happened before.

The players' count is reset once the playoffs start and a suspension comes with the seventh technical a player earns.