Victor Wembanyama is lucky to not be suspended for Game 5.
He picked up a flagrant foul for elbowing Karl-Anthony Towns in the third quarter of the Knicks’ epic 107-106 Game 4 win over the Spurs on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden. Now, the non-call in Game 3 has massive ramifications.
Wembanyama got away with shoving Jalen Brunson by his head area early in the Knicks’ Game 3 loss Monday night. No foul was called on the play. It was reviewed Tuesday, but the NBA opted against retroactively upgrading it to a flagrant.
Why that is so significant is because a player is suspended one game if they rack up four flagrant points across the postseason. A flagrant-1 foul means one point, a flagrant-2 foul means two points.
And Wembanyama was ejected for a flagrant-2 foul after elbowing Naz Reid in Game 4 of the second round against the Timberwolves. With Wednesday’s transgression, he is now at three flagrant points — meaning one more would result in a one-game suspension.
But if Monday’s shove had been upgraded to a flagrant, Wembanyama would be at four flagrant points and thus suspended for Game 5.
“Of course, I’m going to be more careful,” Wembanyama said Wednesday night. “But it’s not going to change much.”
Monty McCutchen, the NBA’s head of officiating, acknowledged on ESPN on Wednesday that the refs missed Wembanyama’s foul during the game but suggested it was unlikely to be upgraded to a flagrant.
“You always have to talk to your team about those situations,” coach Mike Brown said about the non-call in Game 3. “Not only do you talk to your team, which I did, but I talked to the officials, too. I said stuff like that can cause a fight. Obviously, they didn’t see it. There were other things. But those are things that I was talking about. At the end of the day, hopefully, like I said before, the officials will be consistent with what they see on both ends of the floor.”
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