As the wheels were coming off for the Spurs, Stephon Castle stepped out of bounds to turn the ball over with 65 seconds remaining — or did he?
With 1:05 left and the Spurs having already blown a 29-point lead, down 105-104, Castle drove baseline against Josh Hart and was called for stepping out of bounds, though further replay shows he may never have stepped out at all.
The Spurs used a challenge in the opening 65 seconds of the game to get Karl-Anthony Towns hit with an offensive foul call.
The successful challenge allowed them another, but they took it back home after the Knicks’ astonishing 107-106 victory.
Castle appeared to fling his hand and elbow into the head and neck area of the defending Hart, who embellished the action to make it look much worse than it actually was.
Castle still could have been called for an offensive foul on the play if not for the out-of-bounds call.
Still, The Garden was rocking and Spurs coach Mitch Johnson was seldomly heard from as his group of young players collapsed on sports’ biggest stage.
“The dumbest basketball team in the history of civilization,” Charles Barkley said, blasting the Spurs after collapsing against the Knicks.
Castle ended the game shooting 2-for-7 but was clutch from the free-throw line, going 8-for-8 from the charity stripe.
He ended the game with 13 points, five assists and five rebounds and is far from the biggest reason the Spurs lost.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
