Crucial foul on Chris Singleton “unseen” by the referees
Crucial foul on Chris Singleton “unseen” by the referees
With 12.6 seconds remaining in the overtime, Barcelona had 92-90 and the ball possession. Ante Tomic made a full-court pass to Chris Singleton who was running first to dunk the ball. On his back was coming Anthony Randolph who clearly fouled him. The referees were blind and no foul was given, they considered it a legal action, a block. Beneficiating from the thing, Real Madrid run a quick attack and Jaycee Carroll scored an “and 1” who took the score to 93-92 for the host team with less than 5 seconds left. Finally and luckily Barcelona won, but the last seconds had to be managed in another way.
You will watch here below the entire video of the last 19 seconds of the game but first I will have some remarks about it:
- with 19 seconds remaining at 92-87, Barcelona didn’t have to allow Real Madrid to score a 3 pointer. They had to commit a foul and to offer them 2 free-throws
- then, after the pass from Ante Tomic, Singleton if he would have been smart and trained here in Europe like Spanoulis for instance, he would never go directly to the basket, but instead, he would run the clock, without trying to score, just waiting to be fouled in order to have 2 free-throws. There would have been almost no chance for Real Madrid to come back. Just try to run the clock, don’t hurry to score – that’s fundamental in this kind of situation. I hope Singleton and all the Americans can finally learn how to proceed in these circumstances.
- The foul on Singleton was clear as crystal water. The referees made a huge favor to Real Madrid on this play, who could influence the final score and the winner of Copa del Rey.
Gratian Cormos, info@brainbasketball.net
