The NBA confirmed Saturday what most viewers already saw on tape. Victor Wembanyama should not have gotten that technical foul against Mitchell Robinson in Game 2 of the Finals.
The league announced it rescinded the second-quarter technical assessed to Robinson at the 4:56 mark of the second quarter. Wembanyama drew the call after a minor shoving match between the two centers, and Wembanyama hit the free throw that resulted from it. The Spurs lost the game 105-104.
That is the part that stings. The free throw mattered. The technical foul that should not have been called turned into a point that almost decided a Finals game. The Spurs lost by one. Take that point off the board and the entire fourth quarter looks different.
The shove itself was nothing. Robinson and Wembanyama were jostling for position the way every NBA center jostles for position every game. The contact was mild. The crew chose to give Robinson a tech and let Wembanyama walk away clean, and the league rescinding it tells you the officials missed the call in real time.
That kind of one-sided whistle is exactly what fans complain about with star treatment in the Finals. Wembanyama is the face of the league’s next generation. The league wants him to win games and become a global star. The optics of him getting a freebie tech against an undrafted big who has spent his career fighting for every minute is the worst possible look.
Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson should still feel some heat for what happened next. The Wembanyama late-game turnover that sealed the loss was on Johnson too, because he had a timeout and chose not to use it. With less than 15 seconds left and the game tied, the coaching staff should have drawn up a real play instead of letting the kid figure it out.
Wembanyama took responsibility for the turnover after the game, which is what you want to see from your franchise player. But he should not have to. The Spurs are coaching him into mistakes by trusting him to read the floor in moments that veterans usually defer to a set.
The Mitchell Robinson defensive performance also gets buried by all this. Robinson played the Wembanyama matchup as well as anyone has all year. He kept Wembanyama out of his sweet spots. He contested every shot. He even drew the moment that triggered the rescinded tech.
Mike Brown crediting country music for keeping Robinson calm is funny, but the real story is that Robinson finally has a defensive role that suits him. He does not have to score. He just has to take Wembanyama out of the offense. He is doing exactly that.
The series is 2-0 Knicks. The Spurs are in the worst possible spot, going on the road for two games at MSG with their star player still figuring out how to read NBA defenses in the biggest moments. The league rescinding the tech does nothing to change the standings.
What it does change is the discussion. The Spurs got a bad call in their favor and still lost. The Knicks are now winning the series on merit, on defense, and on coaching, and the NBA admitting one of the few questionable calls went against them only makes the Knicks performance look better. Game 3 at MSG is going to be a war.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
