Smith struck Terry in the face with an elbow with approximately seven minutes left in the fourth quarter of New York's 90-76 Game 3 win.
New York Knicks wing J.R. Smith was suspended for Sunday's Game 4 after elbowing Boston Celtics guard Jason Terry, the NBA announced on Saturday night.
Smith was handed a flagrant-2 foul and ejected after elbowing Terry in the face with approximately seven minutes left in the fourth quarter of New York's 90-76 Game 3 win.
"I was trying to draw the foul," Smith explained. "He reached in one time, I thought he was going to reach in a second time and I was going to try to get a quick shot off, but they made a call that the refs saw, and there's not really much I can do about it."
"I really try to stay away from getting into it with the officials," he added, "so I have to keep my head. That was a bad basketball play on my behalf, just because I got kicked out of the game and my team needed me."
Terry said he will use the elbow for motivation.
"You can be angry all you want," he said. "But how are you going to channel that anger? Are you going to fight among yourselves or are you going to fight with the opponent? And that's what we must do. We must channel that anger against these guys that are kicking your butt."
