Tyrese Maxey’s heroics should never have happened, according to a report from the last two minutes of Game 5 of the NBA’s instant classic first-round game between the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks.
On the league side, the referees missed Maxey’s 3-point shot with 25.4 seconds left, Maxey was fouled by Knicks center Mitchell Robinson and made a free throw, and with 28.9 seconds left Philadelphia made an impressive 6-point lead. This is because they announced that they had started a comeback. They stayed in regulation and ultimately won 112-106 in overtime, keeping the 76ers’ season alive.
There were three other decisions that were deemed fraudulent. He should have had 0.4 seconds left on regulation time. The Knicks had the ball after Nicolas Batum blocked Jalen Brunson’s potential game-tying shot wide (instead, the clock ran out and the game went into overtime); Brunson should have been called for an offensive foul in the game, but Joel Embiid ended up with a flagrant foul for hitting Brunson in the head. Josh Hart wasn’t actually on the line with 41.5 seconds left.
This is another way Philadelphia’s Game 5 miracle mirrors New York doing the same against the Sixers in Game 2. The last two minutes report of that game showed multiple officiating errors in New York’s favor as part of the comeback.
Both teams came back from at least five points in the final 30 seconds of regulation to win the series. Something like this has only happened three times in the last 25 years before the playoffs, but this time it happened. He has happened twice in the same building in the past 10 days.
Game 6 will be played Thursday night in Philadelphia, and Game 7, if Philadelphia wins, will return to New York on Saturday night.
