The Golden State Warriors lost in disappointing fashion to the Minnesota Timberwolves Friday night. Harrison Barnes missed last second shot and still Golden State shouldn’t have been in that position to begin with as referee Tony Brown made an inexcusable call with just under a minute remaining in the fourth quarter.
Andre Iguodala rebounded a Nikola Pekovic miss and pushed the ball up the court and just needed to get by the Timberwolves’ Ricky Rubio for a lane to the basket. Aware of the situation Iguodala changed his path and Rubio got forced to slide underneath him for an obvious blocking foul or so it seemed. Instead Brown who was looking at the play ruled that the point guard had established his position before sliding over and called it a charge.
Head coach Mark Jackson saw the replay on the video board showed obvious disgust with the call along with the home crowd. It also took away two free throws and the opportunity to tie the game or take a one point lead.Iguodala did eventually wind up getting to the free throw line for a one point lead before Kevin Martin drained a step back jumper with eight seconds left which wound up being the game winner. This left one last chance for Golden State to win the game and Minnesota played tremendous defense on Stephen Curry who found a wide open Barnes who missed.
As for Brown this wasn’t a borderline it’s the textbook definition of a blocking foul as Rubio never established a defensive position and was moving at the time of contact. Simply put there are no excuses for blowing such an obvious call and the only question now is will the NBA admit the mistake?
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