Many stunned fans were still in their seats at Little Caesars Arena following the Detroit Pistons’ 94-93 loss to the New York Knicks Sunday when officials admitted they blew the final call.
That’s when you know it was egregious.
It does the Pistons no good to hear what they already knew, that Josh Hart fouled Tim Hardaway Jr. on his corner 3-point attempt at the buzzer. But no call was made.
And while it’s universally accepted in the NBA world that the Pistons got the shaft, opinion was divided on how it all unfolded.
The TNT crew, as always, had strong opinions on its broadcast.
“The NBA, as much as I love and it’s given me a great life, that’s the stupidest thing ever,” Charles Barkley said. “How does that actually help the Pistons coming out later (with an admission)? All you’re doing is throwing referees under the bus. Yeah, we know it was a foul, they missed a call. But to put that out … we want to be transparent … that don’t help the Pistons. All it does is make them more mad.”
Kenny Smith argued that it was good for the NBA to comment regardless of whether the league admitted its error or not.
“You feel like it’s not right, but you still want to know,” Smith said.
To which Barkley responded, “No, you don’t want to know because there’s nothing you can do about it now.”
Crew chief David Guthrie told a pool reporter immediately after the game. “During live play, it was judged that Josh Hart made a legal defensive play. After postgame review, we observed that Hart makes body contact that is more than marginal to Hardaway Jr. and a foul should have been called.”
Hardaway would have had three free knows, needing to make two for the Pistons to win. Instead, the Knicks lead the first-round series 3-1 heading into Game 5 Tuesday at Madison Square Garden (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network, TNT).
Shaquille O’Neal couldn’t understand how this happened.
“Why you missed the call?” O’Neal said. “You’re standing right next to him. You’re this close. You shouldn’t have missed that call.”
ESPN analyst and former Boston Celtics center Kendrick Perkins said the Pistons should quit complaining.
“They can save all the crying and the whining if they go do all that what the babies go do,” Perkins said. “Was it a foul? Yes. But physical play started from the beginning of that game. And Cade Cunningham had two crucial turnovers (in the final five minutes). They had opportunities to take control of this game. They didn’t choose to double Jalen Brunson, who by the way is the best closer in these playoffs. He won Clutch Player of the Year for a reason. You don’t even send a double-team that way. Way to get the ball out of his hands.
“So, I get it, you’re mad about the last play. But at the end of the day, we are all at this moment enjoying the postseason. All the old heads are enjoying the postseason because of the physicality, because the refs have swallowed their whistle. It seemed like they’re allowing hand-checking and things to that nature and letting the game be decided by the players. (Former Celtics and current Bucks coach) Doc Rivers always told us don’t leave the game in the officials’ hands. Control what you can control. And I thought the Detroit Pistons didn’t control their own destiny by some of the possessions that they had offensively and then control it on the defensive side of things when they should have been trapping Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns to try to make somebody else beat them.
“Yeah, the refs missed the call, but it didn’t cost the Pistons the game if you really look at the whole game.”
Barkley agreed in that respect.
“I was so mad at the Detroit Pistons watching that game,” Barkley said. “They should have won that game. It came down to that one play and they got screwed. But when they were moving the ball, getting up and down the court, that’s when they made their run. You go back and look at their last 15 possessions, they were playing not to lose. They were running the shot clock down every single time. I’m sitting there screaming at the TV, run your offense! And they were just milking it. I was like, come on, man, you got the lead, moving and grooving, and then the last 10-15 possessions, they went one-on-one with less than five seconds to go (on the shot clock). It was driving me nuts.”
