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Game 3 of the Warriors-Pelicans series was enough to send us all into cardiac arrest. Down 20 heading into the final frame, Golden State staged the type of unlikely comeback that cloying Hollywood sports movies are made of, and in the process, tightened their stranglehold on the series with a 123-119 OT win and a statistically-insurmountable 3-0 lead.
Steph Curry played the hero, of course, by draining a soul-obliterating three-point shot with time winding down to send it into overtime. Many watching at the time also noted that Anthony Davis appeared to foul Curry on the play, and now the NBA league offices have confirmed today that the refs should have indeed called a foul.
NBA announces Stephen Curry was fouled by Anthony Davis and that Curry should have been called for traveling on previous 3-pointer.
— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) April 24, 2015
The NBA certainly deserves credit for owning up to missed calls. Official reviews combined with the league’s state-of-the-art replay center in Secaucus have helped improve the accuracy and consistency of real-time, on-court officiating, but explanations such as the one above still call into question that ever nebulous practice of an official giving a call back to the other team after realizing they just botched a call on the other end.
Everything’s dicier in the playoffs when one or two possessions can potentially affect the outcome of an entire series. Even more perplexing was the league’s explanation, according to sources, that the refs would have called a foul on the play had Curry missed the shot.
According to a couple sources, the explanation the Warriors received was that Curry would’ve gotten the foul if he had missed the 3
— Marcus Thompson II (@ThompsonScribe) April 24, 2015
It seems too obvious to point out that officials shouldn’t wait to see whether the ball goes in the hoop before deciding to call a foul. Had they called the and-one, there’s a good chance Curry – who is a 91.4 percent free-throw shooter – makes the foul shot and wins the game at the end of regulation.
But I suppose we’ll be through the looking glass if we allow ourselves to imagine all the different scenarios that could play out had one or two calls gone a different way. We’ll leave that to the NBA’s tin-hat contingent.
(video via MarcusD)
