The Point God was at his foul-winning best tonight. Chris Paul earned a flagrant foul after tricking Patrick Beverley into jumping under him.
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The LA Clippers held a 13-point lead heading into the 4th quarter of Game 5 tonight. This lead could have been a lot, lot bigger if it wasn’t for a 5-point swing orchetrated by Chris Paul.
The Phoenix Suns needed to come good offensively in the 3rd quarter. They’d entered the period trailing by 7 points. The LA Clippers had continued their 2-point assault even in this period, stretching the lead to 9 points.
But Chris Paul got through a veteran move that marks out his amazing basketball IQ. He called for a screen, and as Patrick Beverley attempted to navigate it, he went up for a jump shot.
The referees had no choice but to blow the whistle at that point. Given that CP3 had tricked Beverley into entering his landing space, they had little choice but to go the replay center.
Patrick Beverley mocks Chris Paul for exaggerating contact for flagrant foul call
Meanwhile, Patrick Beverley could hardly keep his composure at the pure gamesmanship displayed by the Point God. Paul had landed rather hard on his butt, but PatBev wasn’t buying the injury excuse one bit.
He instantly jumped up and down twice in quick succession – an attempt to mockingly mime CP3. This went unpunished by referees – he definitely was toeing the line for a technical foul for taunting.
But they did something worse – they actually called this contact a flagrant foul.
Patrick Beverley was given a flagrant 1 foul for the contact he made on Chris Paul’s jumpshot.
Beverley appeared to imitate CP after he was called for the foul. pic.twitter.com/8UDFFbSiSv
— ESPN (@espn) June 29, 2021
This call was so bad that it got Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff van Gundy all riled up. In fact, even Steve Javie disagreed with the flagrant foul called on this occasion.
The Clippers couldn’t do much as things stood.
