The Knicks Got Horribly Screwed by Two Bad Calls Last Night, But Which Was the

Last night the New York Knicks lost to the Houston Rockets, 105-103, by way of one of the worst calls we’ve seen this NBA season so far. It also, funnily enough, may not have been the worst call of the game. We’ll let you decide.

First, the call that led directly to a Knicks loss’. The score was tied at 103 with time ticking down on the clock. After a frenetic possession, Rockets guard Aaron Holiday was forced to throw up a last-second heave from five feet beyond the three-point line. Jalen Brunson contested the shot… and was called for a foul with 0.3 seconds remaining on the clock. Tom Thibodeau went berserk after the play was upheld upon review. You can see there might have been contact, but if there was it was incidental at best. A bad call in a huge spot and New York adds another to the loss column.

Matters were somehow made much worse after the game, when head referee Ed Malloy admitted to the pool reporter that they screwed up the call. Do you know how rare that is? I cannot recall a single instance in the history of the after-action report in which the referee is like, “Yep. That’s on us, guys. Sorry!” Just think about that. Every horrific call you’ve ever seen and the officials have never admitted their wrongdoing. But this time, they did. They must have felt the call was utterly indefensible to admit it so openly instead of hiding behind the NBA’s two-minute report.

So, pretty bad, eh? Especially given how tight the Eastern Conference standings are in the middle, this loss could very well end up the difference between a home Game 7 or an away Game 7 for the Knicks. But while the ramifications of this call are absolutely more severe, was it a worse call on its own than what happened earlier in the game?

It would be fair to have missed it in the hullabaloo of the endgame disaster but this call was pretty awful. Here’s Brunson somehow getting called for a defensive foul because Dillon Brooks lowered his shoulder and eurostepped as hard as he could into Brunson’s chest.

This is (depressingly) not that shocking to see because we know the officials love to call a blocking foul when the offensive player drives right into a defensive player. It’s the Giannis special and a point of significant frustration among basketball fans because there is literally no way to legally defend a driving player if that’s what they’re going to call every time. Brooks is basically daring the referee to call a charge, betting that the defender will get the foul more often than not, and dammit if he’s not right.

So– which one was worse? The one that cost the Knicks the game or the one that can serve as a microcosm of everything wrong with NBA officiating in today’s game? You decide.