The Thunder point guard (zero wins and ten defeats in the last 10 playoff games refereed by Scott Foster) complains about a coach suffered at half-time. “He wanted to punish me anyway”, he says – and then reveals how the referee, before the tap-off, reminded him of another game-7 defeat that had seen them both protagonists
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To a winner like Chris Paul moral victories are not enough, least of all at 35: after the mocking defeat in Game-7 against his former team, the Houston Rockets, the Thunder No. 3 is a mix of disappointment and anger, not at all sweetened by one record personal performance (19 points, 12 assists, 11 rebounds: the player more old – 35 years and 119 days – to send books a triple double in a playoff game-7). And anger has a well-defined, and even known, target: referee Scott Foster, with which Paul has a complicated and conflicting relationship time ago. The Thunder point guard this time refers to an episode that occurred just before the end of the first half, with the technical foul for “delay in the game” booed at him by Scott Foster. Paul had tried to suffer a breakthrough from Harden, but the whistle had not proved him right: “I was on the ground and I was tying my shoes trying to take a look at the replay on monitors for decide whether or not to call the challenge”, Says CP3. “Scott Foster approached me to tell me that I couldn’t stay there, because the field officials had to clean the parquet. So I got up and continued to tie my shoe, but him he decided to punish me anyway for a delay in the resumption of the game [che ha portato a un tecnico e a un tiro libero, realizzato dallo stesso Harden, ndr].
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I do not know why… we could have won this game – Paul continued in the post-game – but that situation … binds them so much he knows: they will fine me, I know, because I mentioned his name. I already know this story ”, the accusation of the Thunder superstar. Instead of stopping, he adds to the dose, confessing how just before the tap-off, Foster himself had wanted to remind him that he had also refereed the race-7 held in 2008 from his New Orleans Hornets against the San antonio spurs in the semifinal in the West, e lost by Paul and companions.
Chris Paul: 10 defeats in a row in the playoffs with Foster as referee
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There are 10 consecutive defeats of Paul in the playoffs when Scott Foster is part of the referee trio, and the statistics – according to CP3 – it is not accidental. Their most famous fight dates back to the period in which Paul played with the jersey of Rockets: while talking to Courtney Kirkland – another of the referees of the evening’s match, contro i Lakers – Foster intervened to give a technician first to him and then to coach Mike D’Antoni, for protests: “A classic, Scott Foster at his best”Chris Paul commented then. “You know very well what I mean: it never contradicts itself. With some referees you can communicate, with others not: he always wants to be the protagonist, he is convinced that people pay the ticket to see him referee“.
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