Stephon Castle was arguably the only bright spark for the Spurs tonight as they lost 114-127 to the defending champions, the Thunder, in Game 5 on Tuesday night. The former Rookie of the Year finished Game 5 with 24 points, five rebounds, six assists, and three steals while shooting 7-11 from the field (63.6 FG%) and 3-5 from beyond the arc (60.0 3P%).
In Game 5, the Spurs were called for 29 personal fouls, while the Thunder was called for 22 of them. As a result, the Spurs went to the free-throw line only 32 times, while the Thunder went 38 times.
During the postgame press conference, Castle spoke to the media and called out the officials tonight for this disparity.
“I’m fine. Personally, I’m good. But yeah, just, you know, trying to play through it. It’s tough. I just think with the way they guard, how physical they are, we don’t get that same luxury to be able to play as physical on the other end at times,” he said while he called out the officials for being biased towards the defending champions.
“But offensively, I think we do a good job of screening and playing through it. So I think we create a lot of advantages, but I think we just missed a lot of open shots tonight,” Castle added.
Even the Spurs’ head coach, Mitch Johnson, spoke about the officiating tonight, but his tone was different than Castle’s.
“Fouls or not, we need to be more aware of when we’re in the bonus, and so they got some free throws where they weren’t at an advantage at the moment, or we weren’t in a bad spot or out of position.”
“The overly physical stuff, if you allow the ref to call it, and now someone gets free throws and didn’t really have to work to get to that to get us to a spot where we are at a disadvantage, that’s where numbers can get big while giving up points in a quarter,” Johnson said.
After the Spurs gave up an early lead in the first quarter, both teams were nearly tied (44-45) midway through the second quarter when the Thunder began going to the line a lot more often. The major reason for that was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s ability to draw fouls.
The reigning MVP led all scorers tonight despite being a lot less efficient on the floor than his usual standards. He ended the game with 32 points, nine assists, two rebounds, two steals, and one block while going 7-19 from the field (36.8 FG%), 2-3 from behind the arc (66.7 3P%), and 16-17 from the free-throw line (94.1 FT%).
While Castle blames the officials, Johnson feels the Spurs need to look internally to solve the problem of giving up fouls instead of fully blaming the officials.
I find it a bit ironic that until before Game 5, the media narrative was that the Spurs, and Stephon Castle in specific, were being allowed to play like he’s playing football in terms of the physicality that he was being allowed to play with in Game 4. And now, the narrative has shifted back to the Thunder being too physical, while the officials are calling soft fouls on the Spurs.
This is the tricky position that officials face in every game. No matter who they assess any decision in favor of, the losing team nearly always blames them. Do you think the officials were biased in any side’s favor tonight? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
