From the Captain Obvious desk, we bring you the following.
The NBA has officially acknowledged that Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green should have been called for an offensive foul on Ricky Rubio late in Monday’s game against the Timberwolves. The foul — or, non-foul, as it was — came in the final minute of the game with Golden State up two points and made its way onto the NBA’s two-minute report.
The Warriors are known for moving (i.e. illegal) screens, and Green has obviously been at the center of them before. But Monday’s non-foul on Rubio wasn’t a moving screen; it was a flat-out shove, and in a one-score game with under a minute remaining, that type of non-call is glaring. No, it didn’t affect either team’s long-term fortunes one way or the other, but it could have been the difference between winning and losing. That’s not nothing, and compared to the other calls listed on the two-minute report, that one stands out the most.
That the NBA recognizes the officiating crew made a mistake is at least a step in the right direction, but with the playoffs just around the corner, it’ll be interesting to see if the league tightens up on these types of situations. What Golden State normally does with its screen game isn’t all that uncommon around the league and sometimes officiating crews let them slide. But that non-call was unacceptable no matter the circumstances and it can’t happen again on a bigger stage.
