It was a competitive, physical Game 2 between the Phoenix Suns and the Oklahoma City Thunder, as most postseason battles are. And when you get two teams with a reputation for an aggressive style of play, the officials sometimes jump the gun on attempting to regulate it. We witnessed this early on Wednesday night when Dillon Brooks and Lu Dort were given double technical fouls during a box out on a made free throw.
Yeah. There wasn’t much there. But this wasn’t an isolated occurrence. There were multiple calls throughout the game that felt off, confusing in the moment and even more confusing after the explanation. It got to the point where Devin Booker addressed it postgame. He called out the officiating crew, knowing what comes with that. A fine is coming. He said it anyway. The official at the center of it was James Williams.
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The first play he referenced was the technical foul assessed to Booker with 2:05 left in the third quarter. Booker was driving left above the break toward the corner when Jaylen Williams bumped him off his path. Booker was headed out of bounds and flipped the ball back in, trying to save the possession. It hit Williams. After a crowd formed around the official, a technical was called.
When asked if he had received an explanation of the play, Booker responded, “I still haven’t got one.”
“It’s definitely something that has to be looked into,” he continued. “I heard Caruso tell him to call the tech and, you know, he ended up doing it.”
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Then there was the earlier offensive foul assessed at the 2:31 mark of the second. Booker rose for a jumper with Alex Caruso on him. It looked like a normal shooting motion, but his elbow made slight contact with Caruso’s face. Caruso went down, the whistle came, offensive foul. Jordan Ott challenged it. The call stood. It felt like marginal contact, the kind you see on jump shots all the time, with no change in motion and no added force.
That added to the frustration.
“[The officials] said ‘unnatural shooting motion’ that hit Caruso, ” Booker said of the play. “But Caruso is moving forward on that. And if that’s unnatural shooting motion compared to what guys are doing to get fouls nowadays, like you can play them side by side. And you know, I’ll let you guys be the judge. Like, pull the clips, run it back. I’m surprised this is happening on national TV in playoff games.”
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Oklahoma City plays aggressive defense. That is their identity. They press, they bump, they hold on the perimeter, and they live in that gray area where you dare officials to call everything. Most nights, they do not. That style works when the whistle stays quiet.
“In my 11 years, I haven’t called a ref out by name, but James [Williams] was terrible tonight,” Booker stated. “Through and through. It’s bad for the sport, bad for the integrity of the sport. People are going to start viewing this as a WWE, you know, if they’re not held responsible.”
In this game, a few of those moments stood out more than usual. They were noticeable. And it raises the question that always comes up in these spots. Who holds the officials accountable? What happens after a call that feels clearly wrong in the moment and does not get corrected?
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“It just feels disrespectful. I haven’t won a championship in this league, but you know, I have been in it for 11 years now. So to get to this point, to be treated like that, for me to even be saying something out loud. It’s bad.”
“It’s my first time in 11 years,” he added. “But it’s needed. Like I said, whatever I get fined for, everybody can pull the clips and see where the frustration comes from.”
Booker will likely be fined. The series will move forward. The playoffs will keep rolling. But the conversation does not go away. The integrity of the game, as Booker pointed out, continues to sit under a microscope when moments like this pass without clarity.
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