Watch: NBA Refs Miss a Call So Bad It Instantly Evokes 'Bird Box'
Under normal circumstances, if you mix “terrible referee non-calls” and a game involving the Houston Rockets, you’re probably referring to James Harden’s stepback move, which most of the time involves no less than four steps and three distinct pickups of the pivot foot yet never gets called as a travel.
And sure, plenty of that was on display Thursday as Harden went for a triple-double on national television, in Oakland, against the Golden State Warriors in a game the Rockets won 135-134 in overtime.
To the refs’ credit, Harden shot only nine free throws, so either they were determined to keep their whistles in their pockets on general principle or they just weren’t going for Harden’s silly antics as he initiates contact with a defender — also known as “committing an offensive foul” — yet somehow ends up at the line. Not for nothing did he shoot 13-of-32 and have seven turnovers in the ballgame. A lesser officiating crew would’ve given him at least 25 free throws.
But Harden wasn’t the culprit in one of the worst calls in recent NBA history, surprisingly enough.
That “honor” went to Kevin Durant, who decided with the blessing of the officials that basketball courts should be 100 feet long instead of 94.
Durant’s save of the ball set up a Stephen Curry 2-pointer that made the game 134-132 and forced Harden to rely on the late-game heroics that gave Houston the win, but the Rockets should’ve had the ball with the game tied and a chance to run any scoring play they wanted for the win rather than potentially shooting what would’ve been a two-pointer to send it into a second overtime.
Sports Illustrated had another good look at just how far out of bounds Durant was:
Kevin Durant, quite literally, could not have been more out-of-bounds pic.twitter.com/4qs4XQbYG6
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) January 4, 2019
Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s scorn was instant, as he busted out the “Bird Box” meme that’s been all over social media since the Netflix show entered the Twitterverse:
— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) January 4, 2019
He wasn’t alone.
Refs when Kevin Durant was out of bounds. pic.twitter.com/bIDWBt855o
— Clevis Murray (@ClevisMurray) January 4, 2019
The injured Chris Paul could hardly believe his own eyes.
So we doin the #BirdBoxChallenge during NBA games now huh ?
— Chris Paul (@CP3) January 4, 2019
A little PhotoShop goes a long way when having some fun at the expense of terrible officiating.
NBA refs when Kevin Durant was two feet out of bounds in overtime pic.twitter.com/pUwISVqt52
— ITH (@IthWylie) January 4, 2019
The funny thing about this whole misadventure was that at least the right team won.
Too often over the past couple of seasons, we’ve seen blown referee calls end up swinging the outcome of games.
And while the NBA has its “L2M” (as in “last two minutes”) report, where it points out after the fact which calls the refs got right and which they got wrong, so far there have been exactly zero outcomes where a team that lost a game it shouldn’t have got reversed.
If anything, it’s given NBA referees the worst reputation they’ve suffered since Tim Donaghy was match-fixing on behalf of gamblers during his own disgraced tenure as an NBA ref.
Commissioner Adam Silver may end up fining Morey for the social media outburst, but if the Rockets didn’t have Harden’s heroics, they’d have had a game stolen from them by one of the most blatant missed calls this side of assembling a referee crew of blindfolded Sandra Bullock and the two children in the boat.
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