The New York Knicks defeated the Detroit Pistons, 94-93, on Sunday to take a 3-1 series lead, but they probably should be going back to New York tied 2-2. With just over a second remaining, Detroit’s Tim Hardaway Jr. was fouled on a 3-point attempt, as admitted to by the game’s crew chief, but the official nearest to the play didn’t blow his whistle and the clock ran out as Hardaway’s shot sailed wide right.
“During live play, it was judged that Josh Hart made a legal defensive play,” Game 4’s crew chief, David Guthrie, told a pool reporter. “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 should’ve been at the free-throw line for three shots with the Pistons down one and a little over a second remaining. Chances are extremely good that Hardaway, an 85% free-throw shooter, would’ve made at least two of three, and likely all three.
The Knicks would’ve had one second to hit a prayer buzzer-beater. Again assuming that prayer wouldn’t have been answered, this series should be tied 2-2.
Things happen. Calls get missed all the time. You could certainly go back through this game, or any game, and find plenty of calls or non-calls that benefitted or went against both sides. Had Cade Cunningham made the clean pull-up from 15 feet for the potential game-winner, we wouldn’t even be talking about this non-call on the Hardaway miss.
But what makes this even harder to swallow for the Pistons is that Knicks star Jalen Brunson is one of the most egregious foul-baiters on 3-point shots in the league, and he has gotten the benefit of multiple whistles in this series that were far more controversial than the Hardaway play.
Hardaway, after all, pretty much went straight up on his shot. Yes, he shifted ever so slightly to the right once he got Hart in the air to ensure contact, but it was a negligible shift. That’s a natural shooting motion.
What Brunson does is nothing close to a natural shooting motion. When he gets a defender in the air, he goes into a full-on broad jump forward.
I repeat, this is not even close to Brunson’s natural shooting motion. I defy anyone to go find me a clip of him taking a regular open shot lunging that far forward. You can’t find one. Not one. I promise you. And if it’s not a natural shooting motion, it’s not supposed to be a defensive foul. If anything, this is supposed to be an offensive foul.
Brunson isn’t the only player who does this, and I’m not here saying that he’s just some foul merchant. He is an incredible player with a dizzying array of offensive moves and an uncanny pump fake. It’s actually quite an incorrect narrative that foul-baiting, in general, is anything close to a core component of Brunson’s repertoire. He’s one of the highest scorers in the league even when you remove free throws.
But specifically with these unnatural 3-point attempts, yeah, he makes regular use of them. And this nonsense isn’t supposed to fly anymore. These James Harden falling-down or SGA/Brunson jumping-into-your-defender theatrics got so bad in previous seasons that the league had to do something about it. And it did. It’s not near the problem that is used to be.
And even the few calls that Brunson has stolen in this series on plays like this wouldn’t be that big of a deal had Game 4 ended in a different fashion. But for the Pistons, to have a playoff game basically stolen from them on an honest shot attempt, when Brunson so routinely gets these calls on dishonest attempts, well, it only makes it harder to swallow.
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