Dion Waiters pushed Manu Ginobili while inbounding the ball on the final play at the end of Game 2
After LaMarcus Aldridge hit three free throws to put the San Antonio Spurs only down by one in Game 2 of their NBA Playoffs series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, all that OKC had to do was cleanly inbound the ball to run out the clock and get fouled. That was far from what happened as Dion Waiters threw a bad pass that was stolen and almost resulted in a Spurs game winner. However, Waiters almost cost the Thunder the ball even before that with a bizarre play.
As the player inbounding the ball on the sideline, Waiters was being guarded by Spurs veteran Manu Ginobili. Manu was obviously all over Waiters to try and disrupt him and it apparently worked quite well. In a move that I’ve truly never seen before in an NBA game, Dion Waiters literally extended his arm and pushed Ginobili out of the way—once again, while trying to get the ball inbounds—and create separation before throwing his bad pass:
Can you imagine if Waiters had been called for that? This isn’t exactly a player with the most sterling reputation among NBA people, so to get called for that foul in that moment would’ve burned Twitter and the Internet to the ground.
After that no-call and the fact that the Spurs didn’t score off of the turnover that resulted anyways, the Thunder have to be thanking their lucky stars that they escaped Game 2 with a win. As for the Spurs. it’s safe to say they have a right to be quite angry as they now go on the road.
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