There are missed calls, and then there's whatever in Hades happened at the end of Game 5 in the Western Conference semifinal series between the Spurs and Thunder on Tuesday night.
The Spurs found themselves down one with 6.3 seconds to play. With Oklahoma City inbounding the ball near its own basket, everyone and their mother inside the AT&T Center knew the Spurs intended to take a foul to stop the clock, put the Thunder on the line and give themselves an opportunity to tie or, if OKC missed one or both attempts, take the lead.
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Gregg Popovich is one of the greatest coaches of all time, but anyone who's ever led a team at any level would employ that tactic. Given the situation, it's the only hope a team has to win.
For the second time in this series, however, and again on the Spurs' home floor, the referees took that opportunity away from them. They swallowed their whistles when Kawhi Leonard reached out and grabbed Russell Westbrook, who scored a layup and added a foul shot after LaMarcus Aldridge was called for, at best, a ticky-tack foul. The three-point play lifted OKC to a 95-91 victory and a 3-2 series lead.
The incompetence doesn't get more egregious than that. Leonard did everything but form-tackle Westbrook.
By rule, it wasn't intentional, but it was blatant, as it was meant to be. Westbrook's subsequent and-one made it a two-possession game when there was only time for one. It was exactly what the Spurs were trying to avoid by fouling immediately.
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Sure, the comedy of errors will show up in the game's NBA Officiating Last 2-minute Report, a document detailing the stripes' mea culpas, but sorry isn't sufficient. These officials need to be better or be gone.
Let's go ahead and put their names out there while we're at it: Monty McCutchen, John Goble and Jason Phillips. The foul by Leonard should've been called by Phillips.
Russell Westbrook, right, kept going until the whistle blew. (Getty Images)
That missed call, even more so than the myriad officiating mistakes at the end of Game 2, was particularly costly. In Game 2, Dion Waiters should have been whistled for an offensive foul after nudging Manu Ginobili to create space to inbound the ball, but the Spurs still had several chances to win the contest. Tuesday night, they had an opportunity to take a pivotal playoff game snatched from them.
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It could signal the end of the series. The Thunder will look to close out the Spurs at home Thursday in Game 6 (8:30 ET, TNT). With Tim Duncan finally being rendered ineffective in the twilight of his career, it also might be the end of an era.
Afterward, Popovich held his tongue and took the high road.
"(Leonard) fouled (Westbrook). It's pretty obvious he fouled him but every foul doesn't get called. That's the way the game is," he said. "I was more concerned with the play before with (Kevin) Durant's shot. Sometimes, you get a call. Sometimes, you don't. It happens to everybody. Tough game."
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Aided by the refs' gaffe,Westbrook gladly took the win.
"Just keep going till the whistle blows," he said when asked by TNT's Craig Sager about the game's decisive play. "My job is to stay in attack mode, and let them blow the whistle. My job is to keep going to the basket."
Why can't NBA officials do theirs?