We Can’t Not Talk About the (One Sided) Officiating in The 2026 NBA Finals

I’m with Mike Brown — The Knicks lost Game 3 based on their own play, no doubt. There were at least 4-6 Knicks’ passes that were to thin air; the offense was in disarray; they shot poorly especially Bridges and Shamet; and KAT was a non-factor. By every observable method the Spurs were the better team in Game 3.

But can we talk about the officiating? How can we not? There are three plays from Game 3 alone that summarize how one-sided the calls have been.

No Foul

Regular Foul

Flagrant Foul

If you watched the game, you likely recall these three plays. The first is Wemby, yet again, violently manhandling a Knicks guard off the ball. He did it to Alvarado during a box-out in Game 2 without a penalty, and he repeated the act against the Knicks’ Brunson in Game 3. Given that Wembanyama is by far the tallest person on the court, and both players are All Stars and the best players on their respective teams, it’s hard to wonder how the three officials all missed this flagrant foul.

The second was Castle running through Brunson trying to get a rebound, which was called a regular foul. The most similar play I could find is this one, where the Nuggets Aaron Gordon steamrolled a Celtics player. I tracked down the box score of that highlight (lowlight?), and Gordon was given a Flagrant Foul 1 for that act.

The last image, was a flagrant foul called on Brunson during a Champagnie three point attempt, because Champagnie’s foot (toe?) landed on Brunson’s foot.

Before I continue, let’s take a look at the definition of flagrant foul from the NBA’s own web page:

Flagrant Foul Penalty 1: Unnecessary contact committed by a player against an opponent
Flagrant Foul Penalty 2: Unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent

By the book, the last call was correct — I’ll admit that much. I don’t think that Champagnie call was in the spirit of the rule, but certainly it’s in the letter of it. However, you cannot objectively look at those three plays and say the last one is a flagrant foul while the other two aren’t. Certainly Castle bowling over Brunson, lowering his hands/shoulders into Jalen, is unnecessary contact. Does Jalen “sell it” by falling? Yes, but so did Champagnie (much more so!) on that three point attempt. Flop or not, Brunson absorbed a fair amount of contact as he normally does on charges. Besides, the typical way for a defender to try to secure a rebound when an opposing player is in the way is to go around them, which is why it was unnecessary.

And what about the first picture? Some argued that when Wemby shoved Alvarado, it could be seen as a response to Alvarado initiating contact before the shot went up. But in this case, there was no available excuse, not that I think you need one when one player shoves another by the head or neck. Was it unnecessary? Yes. Was it excessive? I would say yes as well, but I could see the argument both ways. Was it a “let them play no-call”? No fricking way.

These three weren’t the only calls I could complain about, but they are a good indication of how qualitatively one-sided the whistles have been. Quantitatively, we can examine the issue as well: during the regular season, the Knicks were average at committing fouls (15th), and the Spurs were good-not-great at getting to the line (10th). The Spurs’ FT/FGA of .255 in this series would have led the league in free-throw rate. There is no way those numbers make sense in the aggregate; San Antonio shouldn’t be receiving significantly more calls against a league-average team, not over the long term.

So far in this series, the Spurs have gotten away with more physical contact than New York. San Antonio’s game plan seems to be to bully Brunson, the Knicks’ best player. However, if that came with the cost of New York being allowed to similarly manhandle Wembanyama, the Spurs would certainly not make that deal. Yet, because the officials are not calling the game evenly, the series has essentially become a free-for-all against the Knicks and a normally officiated game for the Spurs. The league’s officials need to sit down, review the tape of this series, and figure out how to call these games more evenly, instead of continuing with this one-sided debacle.

Two things. This is a Hart 3 point shot that Wembanyama contested, and please notice that Hart lands on Wemby’s foot here. This was just as much a foul as Brunson on Champagnie’s shot, but no foul called here! Hart didn’t fall down here, and that’s why players “sell it” by falling down.

Oh, and to Shaq, who recently shared an anecdote about Phil Jackson saying, “Real champions don’t complain (about not getting foul calls),” I would like to point out that there was no more vociferous complainer about foul calls than Phil Jackson himself. “Chief Big Triangle” was notorious for complaining about one-sided officiating; he was fined $35,000 in 2011 and $25,000 in 2009, and, of course, he was ejected in the 1994 playoffs (against the Knicks) and subsequently accused the league’s head office of rigging games:

“I think they’re licking their chops on Fifth Avenue,” Jackson said, alluding to NBA headquarters.

“I don’t like orchestration. It sounds fishy, but they do control who sends the referees. If it goes seven games, everybody will be really happy. Everybody will get the TV revenue and ratings they want.”