Clinging to a 98-97 lead in Game 2, all the Oklahoma City Thunder had to do to win was survive an inbound pass and 13.5 seconds of clock. Good lord, they just barely did. Dion Waiters was inbounding the ball at midcourt and Manu Ginobili, a pest as ever, was right up in his grill. As Waiters's five seconds were about to run out, he shoved an elbow into Ginobili's chest, pushing him out of the way, and lobbed a pass to Kevin Durant. Danny Green contested the pass and the ball squirted loose and a mad cap dash ensued as San Antonio looked to steal a win.Green immediately got the ball to Patty Mills at the rim, but Steven Adams was hustling back to prevent an easy bucket. Mills found Ginobili in the corner, who drove to the paint and kicked it back to Mills, who shot an airball. The ball disappeared in the mass of humanity under the basket, who wrestled each other for possession. Eventually those 13.5 seconds finally elapsed and the Thunder held on for a huge road win. But…what the hell happened here?Not a single whistle was blown, or foul called during this sequence, despite a referee standing two feet away from Waiters as he cleared out Ginobili from out of bounds. Chris Weber made the point in the aftermath that had the Spurs gotten the foul called as they should have, Gregg Popovich would have been able to draw up a play rather than have his team scramble in the final seconds to try to score. But they still had a pretty good opportunity. They could have had an easy bucket with a better pass from Green to Mills, but they still had plenty of time to move the ball around a clearly frantic Thunder team trying to play catchup. Mills just airmailed it. All things considered, this is probably the most fair ending to a completely nutso couple of seconds. After all, we just learned there's no guarantee an inbound pass will go off without a hitch.After the game, referee Ken Mauer admitted they missed the foul in real time, adding "it's something we have never seen before, ever."
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That wasn't it, however. Things got even more bizarre on Mills's airball. Steven Adams went to contest the shot and barreled into the fans sitting in the front row. As he tried to get back into the play, you can see a woman grab on to his arm. She was knocked over by Adams and could have just been trying to keep her balance, but still, you can't be preventing players from getting back into the play.At the end, as the referees were walking off the court, Popovich could be seen barking at them to "pay attention." It's a reasonable request–especially on the inbound pass—but once everything was set into motion, there was entirely too much going on to pay attention to it all.[TNT]"On the floor, we did not see a foul on the play," referee Ken Mauer told a pool reporter. "However, upon review we realize and we agree that we should have had an offensive foul on the play. It's a play that we have never seen before, ever, but we feel we should have had an offensive foul on Waiters."