Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough goes to the basket against the Heat’s Udonis Haslem. (Issac Baldizon/NBA/Getty Images)

The NBA suspended Miami Heat forwards Udonis Haslem for one game and Dexter Pittman for three games stemming from flagrant fouls charged to both players during Tuesday’s Game 5 Eastern Conference Semifinals matchup with the Indiana Pacers.

Both players will sit out Game 6 in Indianapolis on Thursday and were initially accessed a flagrant-1 fouls. Haslem fouled Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough in the second quarter and Pittman fouled Lance Stephenson late in Game 5 after the contest was well in hand. Miami won the game 115-83 and lead the series three games to two.

“I felt like I got hit in the face,” Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough said of the foul after the game. “Should it have been the stiffer flagrant-2? “That’s for you guys to decide.”

Early in the second quarter of Game 5 of the Miami Heat-Indiana Pacers playoff series, Miami forward Udonis Haslem was called for a hard foul after dropping both arms across the head and shoulders of Indiana forward Tyler Hansbrough. On the TNT broadcast (see below) analyst Steve Kerr immediately says, “That might be a Flagrant 2.”

After the officials discussed the play, however, Haslem was only charged with a Flagrant 1, which does not include a mandatory ejection from the game. The perception, from Kerr and other NBA experts, is that Haslem got off easy, and that the league may yet suspend him from Game 6 of the series.

The league will take a look at that Haslem flagrant, as it does all. Winning here just became crucial for Miami, because he may get a game.—
Ken Berger (@KBergCBS) May 23, 2012

Heat might get to keep Haslem around tonight but that sure looked like a flagrant 2 to me, possible G6 suspension?—
Steve Aschburner (@AschNBA) May 23, 2012

Flagrant 1 or 2, Haslem isn't playing Game 6.—
Beckley Mason (@BeckleyMason) May 23, 2012

Haslem may have been retaliating against Hansbrough for a Flagrant 1 the Pacer committed a minute earlier.

Tempers flared last night at American Airlines Arena in Miami, where the Heat beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 98-93, in a battle of two NBA elites. Most notably, Kendrick Perkins drew the Heat’s ire for an emphatic shove of Dwyane Wade — and a day later, Miami’s Udonis Haslem still isn’t happy.

“I think sometimes people just use the TVs and the cameras and the crowd, you know, to put on a show,” Haslem told Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “I don’t think [Perkins] is all that he shows out there on the court.

“I think anybody can be a tough guy with a thousand people watching on TV and referees who call fouls and stop the game and different things like that. I don’t seeing him being any tough guy that he puts on the show to be, at all.”

Perkins earned his 12th technical foul of the season for his skirmish with Wade. The NBA begins issuing one-game suspensions after tech No. 13.

Perkins’ animosity with Wade, Haslem and the Heat goes way back — the Thunder big man was also a member of the Boston Celtics team that got chippy with the Heat in the first round of the 2010 Eastern Conference playoffs.