Wembanyama avoids flagrant for Brunson shove
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- Victor Wembanyama will not receive a flagrant foul for shoving Jalen Brunson to the ground in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, per a league spokesperson who told ESPN's Shams Charania on Tuesday night.
- Wembanyama remains at two flagrant points in the postseason, with four triggering an automatic suspension.
- The shove occurred with 4:44 left in the first quarter of Monday's game when Brunson tried to set a screen on the 7-foot-4 center near the free throw line; no foul was called on the floor despite immediate protests from New York.
- NBA senior VP of referee development Monty McCutchen told ESPN's "NBA Today" earlier Tuesday that a foul should have been called on the play, even as the league declined to upgrade the no-call to a flagrant.
- Wembanyama accumulated his two existing flagrant points earlier this postseason by elbowing Minnesota's Naz Reid in the jaw in Game 4 of the second round, drawing a flagrant foul 2, an ejection, and no further discipline or fine.
Why it matters: The league's own referee development chief publicly conceded a foul was warranted on the Wembanyama-Brunson play, yet the NBA still declined to assess one — an internal contradiction that will amplify Knicks fans' frustration heading into Game 4. With Wembanyama sitting just two flagrant points from an automatic suspension, any further incident in the Finals could sideline the Spurs' franchise centerpiece.
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