The Thunder came up with a 98-97 win in San Antonio in Monday night’s Game 2 to tie their Western Conference semifinal series at one game apiece.
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Crew chief Ken Mauer said after the game that upon further review an offensive foul should have been called on Waiters. Here’s the situation: LaMarcus Aldridge hits 3 free throws in the final 13.5 seconds to decrease the Oklahoma City Thunder lead to 1 point.
While it’s possible a foul call could have changed the complexion and ultimate result of the game, the Spurs had their fair share of chances to make up for the one-point margin of defeat throughout.
However, the Spurs were left aggrieved – with coach Gregg Popovich leading the protests – after they felt Dion Waiters committed an offensive foul on Manu Ginobili when the ball was out of bounds seconds earlier. In addition, the league said that Spurs guard Patty Mills held Steven Adams and Kawhi Leonard held Russell Westbrook’s jersey during the inbounds play.
Notably, the National Basketball Association also ruled it was permissible for Waiters to jump on his inbound pass because he didn’t move laterally, and their “leaving the playing surface” language appears to mean going into the stands, not leaving the actual floor.
Spurs: Aldridge was limited to 14.5 points in San Antonio’s four-game sweep of Memphis….
After scoring 43 points in the first quarter of game 1, the San Antonio Spurs started game 2 missing 12 out 13.
Touching on just this, Thunder guard Dion Waiters had some rather intriguing comments in the lead up to Game 3 in Oklahoma City.
Waiters doesn’t pay much notice to the speculation of his inbound tactics, “I don’t know, I don’t really look into all the things online and stuff like that”.
Joe Johnson scored 16 points and Josh Richardson had 11.
Game three of the best-of-seven series will be played on Friday in Oklahoma City. “I’ve never seen that before!” Maybe we focus on the blown call, because we can not comprehend the Spurs not executing properly, but to put the blame on the referee’s after that game is ludacris.
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Last night was Game 2 of the Thunder/Spurs Western Conference Semifinal series, and anyone that watched it was witness to one of the wildest, most weird finishes in recent playoff memory.
