Devin Booker had a night, not the good kind. The kind where the basket feels like it shrinks, the whistle feels invisible, and the referee suddenly becomes the main character of your nightmares.
After the Suns’ Game 2 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Booker didn’t just walk off the court, he practically escorted the referees into the postgame interview spotlight with him. According to Booker, the whistles were either missing, broken, or on a very long lunch break.
And honestly, he sounded like a man who had seen enough.
“In my 11 years, I haven’t called a ref out by name, but James [Williams] was terrible tonight through and through,” Suns star Devin Booker said after a 120-107 loss in Wednesday’s Game 2 that gave the defending champion Thunder a 2-0 series lead. “It’s bad for the sport, bad for the integrity of the sport. People are going to start viewing this as a WWE if they’re not held responsible.
“It just feels disrespectful. I know I haven’t won a championship in this league, but I have been in it for 11 years now. So to get to this point to be treated like that, for me to even be saying something out loud, it’s bad.”
Booker expressed displeasure with the officiating in general and was perturbed in particular with a technical foul called against him with 2:05 remaining in the third quarter.
To be fair, this is playoff basketball. Emotions are high, legs are tired, whistles are mysterious. Every possession feels like a court case with no judge willing to make eye contact.
Still, Booker made sure his message was heard. The Suns want fairness, the Suns want balance, and most of all, the Suns want a game where the whistle doesn’t disappear like socks in a washing machine.
Game 3 now carries extra spice. The kind that comes with receipts, replays, and a player who remembers everything, especially the calls that didn’t go his way.
So buckle up, because if Game 2 was the complaint form, Game 3 might just be the follow-up email with all caps enabled.
