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SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich, returned, stalled against the scorer's table and stared at the ground with disbelief, knowing that with seven tenths second to make, this call could be expensive for his team.
After catching the ball on the inner pass, the center of Memphis Grizzlies, Marc Gasol, saw Rudy Gay of the Spurs somewhat out of position as he rushed to defend himself. Gasol initiated contact with one shoulder to shoot a non-shooting foul, which led to free throws because both teams were in a bonus situation.
Gasol proved that Popovich's intuition was correct by making two free throws to lead Memphis to a 104-103 win in a wild finish that left Spurs players in the locker room watching their words later, taking care of do not criticize the officials.
"Do not put me in this position," said LaMarcus Aldridge. "Yeah, we can accept that difficult calls have been made and that difficult calls are missed."
That's exactly what some Spurs players have perceived as Wednesday's loss.
After Gasol overturned the free throws to give the advantage to Memphis, the Spurs asked for a timeout to establish a last game for the last shot. With DeMar DeRozan throwing the inside pass, Aldridge took possession of the ball and opened fire. Gasol seemed to come into contact with Aldridge when the Spurs veteran fell back to the ground, looking for a call that never came, while his doorbell fell under the basket.
"I thought it was a fault – not even thought – it's a fault," DeRozan said. "Especially with Marc, it was a fault, it's just my opinion, I'm pretty sure everyone here agrees with me too." But that's right, "It's not good, we can not do anything about it now."
DeRozan added that if the appeal was made against Gay, then "you must call" a foul on Gasol during Aldridge's ringing attempt.
"It's the right call to make," he said.
Many in the San Antonio locker room felt that there had been more of Gasol's major contacts during Alddridge's last shot than the foul committed on Gay who had sent Gasol on the line to win the match.
"What I'm saying is that there were more contacts [on my buzzer attempt] what they called Rudy, that's for sure, "said Aldridge.
In a match that included four technical fouls, including three called for visiting Grizzlies, even Memphis coach J.B. Bickerstaff mentioned the presence of the unsolicited referee.
"It was a wild game," said Bickerstaff. "It was a really great game. Both teams attacked that. We will leave the referees out for tonight and we will give the players in the field the people who will be paid to play in the field. and the people who pay to see them, we will give them the game. "
The Spurs fought back a deficit of 10 points and led by a point while they only had 1.2 seconds in a competition with 22 head changes and 10 draws.
Gay lamented what he perceived as the inability of San Antonio to have the last word in the result.
"It sucks because we come from such a hole," he said. "We worked hard, and it's crazy that a game can define the game as a whole, give them respect, they played well, but I think we should have won this game." with me personally, so I fear that as long as we have worked, we have nothing to do with the outcome of the match.
"They just let him bite, Marc is that kind of player, he knows where he puts the game in your hands and you do not have the right call, it's hard for us. With one on one, you do not do basketball.On the other, you shoot a shot, without appeal.Then you make your own decisions about it, what you think.
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