Game 5 of the Warriors-Rockets series was phenomenal. Every game in the series has had the perfect amount of drama, intensity, great basketball, and, of course, controversy. In Game 1, the Rockets left the court furious after plenty of landing foul calls not going their way, including the attempted game-winner from James Harden.
Then, on the final possession of Game 5, the Rockets got another tough break. As Houston was trying to steal a win from the clutches of defeat, the picked up the Warriors on the full-court press. Golden State tried to do the usual thing of running clock and forcing the Rockets to foul.
The problem is the Warriors got a little too loose and almost lost the ball. Klay Thomspon, in a mad dash, threw the ball while falling out of bounds. The problem? He may have stepped out first.
https://twitter.com/_MarcusD3_/status/1126356134422511616
This is really close and hard to tell either way how it would have gone. The real problem here is, in an NBA where absolutely everything is reviewed now, somehow this doesn’t get reviewed. Which is a little crazy when you consider the lengths referees will go these days to make sure out of bounds rules are completely and totally correct. So to have such a pivotal game in this series not have a key moment get reviewed is quite frankly surprising.
This, of course, doesn’t mean the Rockets got screwed, though. Had they not dug themselves into this hole in the first place, and been put in a situation where they had to play the foul/turnover game, they might have been able to pull off the win. Instead, they have to head back to Houston for Game 6 facing elimination.
