There were a lot of strange calls and non-calls over the final couple of minutes of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors on Monday night, but one of the most questionable was the no-call on a Marc Gasol drive with 49 seconds remaining.
Gasol drove to the basket with the shot clock winding down and flipped up a layup against a contesting DeMarcus Cousins, who appeared to make contact with Gasol as Gasol went to the ground.
However, no foul was called.
Well, according to Kyle Neubeck of The Philly Voice, the NBA's last two-minute report says that the officials missed that call, stating that Cousins did, indeed, foul Gasol, which should have put the Raptors big man on the line for two free throws.
Still, that was not the only debatable call down the stretch.
There was also a key basket interference call on Cousins with under two minutes remaining, where Cousins threw down a putback dunk that would have brought the Warriors to within one, but the bucket was waved off because it was ruled that Cousins touched the ball above the cylinder.
Replays seemed to indicate that the ball was off the cylinder when Cousins touched it, but the officials then upheld the call, much to the dismay of Cousins and the Warriors.
So, while Gasol may have been fouled by Cousins, the officials also wiped away a critical basket by Cousins. Basically, bad calls went both ways in Game 5.
The Warriors went on to win 106-105 to force a Game 6 on Thursday night.
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