The Spurs are headed to the NBA Finals, so the ending is happy enough for San Antonio fans. But the Western Conference Finals included one of the worst officiated games of the entire postseason, and the refs deserve the heat.
Game 5 between the Spurs and Thunder was the moment. The two-minute report from the NBA after the game was, predictably, a clown show. Multiple calls and non-calls went against San Antonio that should have gone the other way.
There was the obvious moving screen on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander that put two Spurs defenders on the floor and led to an open Thunder three. The refs swallowed their whistles. The replay showed two clear elbows and a hip check.
There was the strip on Victor Wembanyama that was called a clean steal. Wemby clearly got hit on the wrist before the ball was dislodged. The OKC announcers even said it on the broadcast. Whistle never came.
And the worst one. Late in the third quarter, a Stephon Castle drive ended with him getting bumped in mid-air, body slammed and absolutely no call. He just sat under the basket looking up at the ref like he was in a movie scene. That should have been an automatic two free throws. The Spurs ended up turning it over.
None of this changes the result. San Antonio won. Wembanyama was too dominant for any officiating swing to matter. But there is a pattern here that the NBA needs to address.
The Thunder were the defending champions. There has been chatter all postseason that the league was tilting calls to keep them alive longer because the matchup gets more ratings. Whether or not that is true, the perception is real, and the league office has not done a great job of addressing it.
OKC’s stars get the benefit of the whistle. Shai is among the most foul-baited stars in the league. Jalen Williams gets to drive through chests. Chet Holmgren can get away with phantom verticality. The Spurs needed to play perfect basketball just to keep things even, and even then the breaks went the other way.
San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson did not get drawn into the postgame complaints. Good move. Coaches who complain about officiating get fined and rarely see the situation improve.
Now the Spurs get a chance to redo their officiating relationship in the Finals. The Knicks are the league’s biggest market matchup since the Lakers vs Celtics. There will be eyeballs on every call.
If the league wants to fix the perception that it tilts whistles toward certain teams, the Finals are the place to prove it.
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.
