Carlisle defends referee Scott after losing G4: Criticism of him is "ridiculous and stupid"

June 16th, referee Scott Foster was widely criticized after the G4 of the Finals, but Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle became Foster's supporter.

Earlier, Carlisle said in an interview: "I saw some comments about referees, especially about Scott Foster, which was a terrible referee. He was an excellent referee. He enforced the law very well this playoff round." Carlisle mentioned that his relationship with Foster dates back 30 years ago when Foster began to be the NBA referee in the 1994-95 season. He also mentioned that Foster is often nicknamed "The Extender" because the outside world believes that in the playoffs under his law enforcement, the teams that usually fall behind in the series win, thus dragging the series into more games.

"Our team has met him many times," Carlisle said. "And now these ridiculous scrutiny and criticisms are both terrible and unfair and unjust, and even stupid." Carlisle said he did not want to talk specifically about what external comments he responded to, but he believed that the accusations made no sense.

In the finals G4, the Pacers and the Thunder won a total of 71 free throws, of which the Thunder had a slight advantage with 38 free throws to 33 free throws. There were two malicious fouls, two technical fouls and a total of 53 fouls penalty in the game.

"There were a lot of fouls in the game, so there were a lot of free throws," Thunder coach Mark Degnot said after the game. "I think the referee enforced the law well today. Both teams got a lot of free throws. It was a very fierce physical confrontation game, and it was the case on both ends of the offense and defense."

However, an obvious missed judgment with 2 minutes and 23 seconds left in the game caused anger among fans. At the critical moment when the Thunder set off a climax of counterattack, Thunder star and regular season MVP Shay Gilgers Alexander, suspected of pushing people against Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith during an attack, but the referee did not make an offensive foul penalty. Immediately afterwards, SGA hit a key jump shot, helping the Thunder overtake the score 104-103.

In the fourth quarter, SGA scored a total of 8 free throws and contributed 35 points in the game, eventually helping the Thunder win the game 111-104, tying the total score to 2-2.