Intercepting Daniss Jenkins’ entry pass, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a chance to add to his MVP resume. Tied at 101 points with 12 seconds left, he was on the cusp of adding another game-winner to his growing catalog. Matched up with Javonte Green, he was ready to dance.
Creating space, Gilgeous-Alexander swished in the stepback 3-pointer. Game-winner. The OKC crowd roared as they thought they saw the reigning MVP hit another clutch-time bucket and drag the Thunder to the finish line. Instead, all their noise did was drown out the high-pitched whistle.
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Shockingly, Gilgeous-Alexander was called for an offensive foul. He extended his arm out to create space from Green. Wow. You seldom see those calls get made in general — much less at that juncture of the game.
Alas, the Thunder got over it and escaped with the 114-110 overtime win over the Pistons. Gilgeous-Alexander had 47 points on 12-of-19 shooting and went 21-of-25 on free throws. Here’s what OKC had to say about the controversial call:
Mark Daigneault
“They’re doing the best they can. A lot of their calls are subjective. Sometimes they go your way and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, complaining about it or using it as an excuse is not going to help you get into the next possession. I was really impressed with our team’s ability to get that shot, have that call not go our way, recenter in overtime and go win the five-minute overtime. I’m not sure you get anything out of it by arguing about it until you’re blue in the face and then losing those five minutes.”
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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
“I have five minutes to win a basketball game. That’s what it was about. I wanted the shot because the game probably would’ve been over. I wanted to win and go home. Didn’t get the chance. I had five more minutes to make sure we went home with the win tonight. We got the job done.”
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Thunder react to offensive foul that erased SGA’s game-winner over Pistons