Did The Thunder Literally Steal Game 2?

Spurs in 4, they said.

When the buzzer went off to seal a monumental Game 2 win for the Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA world stood still for about an hour. I stood in front of my Samsung flatscreen wondering if I had an AED at home in case I collapsed. Did we just do what I think we just did? I had to rewind just in case. What I saw the second time around was unbelievable. Did the Thunder just ski-mask their way to crucial away win or did the Spurs just fail to capitalize on an equal amount of chances going their way?

Let’s go ahead and take a look at arguably the craziest and most unprecedented final sequence in an NBA game known to mankind.

(Times below are according to video posted above)

0:05 – The Thunder begin quite possibly the craziest play of the playoffs thus far by initiating their inbound set with a flurry of off-ball movements and screens. Not so fast though. Freeze the screen right here and you’ll see Danny Green practicing his future Dancing With The Stars routine with Kevin Durant. Nearby, you’ll also catch Patty Mills basically become Steven Adams‘ belt as he tries to hold the big man back from being any part of the play. Play on though, this is PLAYOFF BASKETBALL.

0:07 – Alright, Dion. Inbound the ball. Dion. DION. WHAT. WHY’D YOU.

Man, oh man. What a night for Dion Waiters. After hitting what was a clutch three from the corner just a couple plays prior, Waiters went on the make a play no one in the basketball world has ever seen before, and I mean that in a bad way. NBA official Marc Davis did a VERY slow 5-second count and even then Waiters had to rely on never before seen forearm shiver to get Manu Ginobili to back off a bit so he can toss a dangerous cross court pass. NBA manuals out, everyone.

"via the NBA, Rule 8 – Section III:Until the passed ball has crossed the plane of the boundary, no player shall have any part of his person over the boundary line and teammates shall not occupy positions parallel or adjacent to the baseline if an opponent desires one of those positions."

Among all the hysteria over Waiters’ actions, another violation almost went completely unnoticed. This time on Ginobili.

0:08 –  You just got away with a pretty egregious violation, but hey, why not just jump so you can pull off a dangerous pass to KD. It’s not like Marc Davis is  a couple feet away from you and staring directly at you.

Off-screen: Kawhi Leonard politely asks to trade jerseys with Westbrook after the game, Russ declines, Kawhi decides to rip his jersey off his back instead.

0:09 – The pass is thrown and KD uses his length to catch the ball only to be pummelled on the way down by Danny Green. No call. Ball is punched loose and off to the races they go with a 3-on-1 to potentially win the game.

0:18 – I’ll take this chance to point out that Steven Adams is a STUD. Look at that Australian beast hustle back to disturb that break out and contest a ridiculously open Patty Mills. Great job Steven, now get back in the play! Steven. What the. HEY. It’s the infamous blindside WWE style attack while the ref isn’t looking.

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As if we didn’t have enough first-time ever plays already, a fan who was inadvertently knocked out of his/her seat decided to add a little something extra to the home court advantage by tugging on Adams’ arm so he couldn’t recover from the contested shot.

To summarize, both teams did get away with a few violations in the closing moments of Monday night’s epic game, but if the officials even touch the scorer’s table to review any of it, this game is technically done with Giniboli stepping out of bounds, a play which would have resulted in a delay of game tech to the Spurs.

RIP to the poor soul at the NBA officiating offices who has to write up last night’s L2M report.