Victor Wimpanyama was lucky not to be suspended for the fifth game.
He drew 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 lack of contact in Game 3 has massive ramifications.
Wembanyama escaped a push from Jalen Brunson in the head area early in the Knicks’ Game 3 loss on Monday night. No foul was called on the play. It was reviewed on Tuesday, but the NBA chose not to retroactively upgrade it to the flagrant level.
The reason this is important is because a player is suspended one game if he gets four flagrant points during the postseason. A flagrant error of -1 means one point, and a flagrant error of -2 means two points.
Wembanyama was ejected for a flagrant foul after elbowing Nas Reid in Game 4 of the second round against the Timberwolves. With Wednesday’s violation, he is now on three flagrant points – meaning another point would result in a one-match suspension.
But if Monday’s match had been upgraded to a screaming match, Wembanyama would have been on four screaming points and therefore suspended for the fifth game.
“Of course, I will be more careful,” Wembanyama said on Wednesday night. “But it won’t change much.”
NBA head of refereeing panel Monty McCutcheon admitted to ESPN on Wednesday that the referees fouled Wembanyama during the game but noted it was unlikely to be upgraded to a flagrant foul.
Coach Mike Brown said of the no-call in Game 3: “You always have to talk to your team about those situations. Not only do you talk to your team, which I did, I also talked to the officials. I said things like that can cause a fight. They obviously didn’t see that. There were other things. But those are the things I was talking about. At the end of the day, like I said before, I hope the officials are consistent with what they’re seeing on both ends of the court.”