San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama should have been called for a foul after he shoved Jalen Brunson hard in the first quarter of their Game 3 win over the New York Knicks on Monday night.
Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s head of officiating, acknowledged that a foul was missed in the moment while speaking on ESPN on Tuesday. While the league reviewed the incident, but opted not to assess a flagrant foul retroactively on Tuesday night.
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In the opening quarter of the Spurs’ 115-111 win at Madison Square Garden, Wembanyama clearly shoved Brunson hard with both hands as Brunson tried to set a screen on him. Brunson didn’t fall all the way down to the court, but he had to brace himself on the floor from the push — which set off fans in the arena. Brunson jumped up and got in Wembanyama’s face briefly before setting another screen on him as the play continued.
No foul was called.
“Whatever you saw is what you saw,” Brunson said plainly of the incident after the game.
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Wembanyama ended up leading the Spurs to the four-point win on Monday night, which marked their first win of the series after they dropped the first two games at home last week. He had 32 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Brunson led the Knicks with 32 points and five assists, though he had five turnovers, too. The contest was the first NBA Finals game held at Madison Square Garden since 1999.
While Brunson didn’t want to get into it much, Knicks coach Mike Brown ripped into the officials after the loss. His biggest issue was the free-throw discrepancy in the second half. The Spurs shot 24 attempts from the line, compared to just eight that the Knicks did in the final 24 minutes.
“I never thought I would be in the NBA Finals and see a team get 24 free-throw attempts in the second half to another team’s eight,” Brown said. “I don’t think I complain much about officials or the fairness when it comes to the free-throw attempts. … I never thought I’d see it in an NBA Finals game, and I saw it tonight. That’s tough to overcome when you’re playing against a great team.”
To be fair, the Knicks attempted 22 free throws during the entire contest. The Spurs shot 32.
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“We were definitely fouling a lot,” Brunson said.
Had a flagrant foul been assessed retroactively, it would have marked the second major incident Wembanyama has faced so far this postseason. He was ejected for the first time in his career during their matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves last month after he elbowed Naz Reid in the chin.
But as the foul wasn’t called in the moment, the game is now over, and the NBA opted not to escalate things, there isn’t much recourse to be had. Wembanyama, the league admitted, got away with one.
