Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I always hate when a game is decided by the officials.
In today’s SI:AM:
😠 Pistons-Knicks controversy
👨⚖️ How Aaron Judge got even better
📝 NFL draft grades
Brutal break for the Pistons
The Detroit Pistons’ miracle season is in danger of coming to a crushing conclusion.
Detroit lost Game 4 of its first-round series against the New York Knicks on Sunday after a missed call in the final seconds that even the officials had to acknowledge was an error.
After an impressive defensive stand on the Knicks’ final possession, the Pistons had the ball on the sideline with 11 seconds left, trailing 94–93. Cade Cunningham’s pull-up jumper from the foul line missed the mark and a chaotic scramble for the loose rebound ensued. Eventually, the ball rolled into the corner near the New York bench, where Tim Hardaway Jr. picked it up and attempted a three at the buzzer. Hardaway was knocked off balance during the shot attempt by Josh Hart, but no foul was called.
“You all saw it,” Hardaway said. “It was blatant.”
The no-call denied Hardaway an opportunity to salvage the game for his team. He’s an 85.5% free-throw shooter and would have needed to make just one of three shots to send the game to overtime, or two to win it.
To make matters worse for Pistons fans, the officiating crew admitted that it was the wrong call.
“During live play, it was judged that Josh Hart made a legal defensive play,” 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.”
That admission will provide little comfort to the Pistons and their fans, who now have to hope for three straight wins (two of them on the road) to save their season.
The Knicks-Pistons series has been a highly physical affair. The two teams have been called for a combined 172 fouls (90 on Detroit, 82 on New York), the most in any first-round series this year and 11 more than the series in second place. (The Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves have been called for a combined 161 fouls.) But that number might even undersell how physical the series has been. After Game 2, both coaches complained that more fouls should have been called.
Officiating has been a constant complaint throughout the series. After Game 2, it was Tom Thibodeau and J.B. Bickerstaff’s assertion that not enough fouls were being called. There were two controversial moments in Game 3: Jalen Brunson was not called for a backcourt violation in the final seconds, and later the clock ran prematurely when Brunson intentionally missed a free throw.
But none of those previous officiating controversies affected the outcome of the game as clearly as the no-call on Hart did. It’s possible—perhaps even likely—that if Hart had been called for a foul, the Pistons would have won the game and tied the series 2–2. Instead, they’re headed into Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night with their season on the line.
The best of Sports Illustrated
• Aaron Judge has somehow taken his game to another level in the first month of this season. Tom Verducci broke down the adjustments Judge has made to become the best pure hitter in baseball.
• Gilberto Manzano and Matt Verderame graded every NFL team’s draft class. I was a little surprised to see them give the Giants an A+.
• The biggest story of the draft was Shedeur Sanders’s fall. Before he was taken by the Browns in the fifth round, Conor Orr wrote about the potential role that his family played in the unexpected slide.
• Dan Lyons looks at the college quarterbacks set to replace each of the 14 selected in the draft.
• Lakers coach JJ Redick is also upset with NBA officiating.
• Brutal news for the Bucks, who have apparently lost Damian Lillard to a torn Achilles tendon.
• The son of Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich admitted to making a prank phone call to Shedeur Sanders during the NFL draft.
• Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow left his start on Sunday with a shoulder injury. Los Angeles already has 12 pitchers on the injured list.
• Liverpool clinched the Premier League championship for the 20th time in club history.
The top five…
… things I saw yesterday:
This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Pistons on the Brink After Controversial No-Call Helps Knicks Win .
