You remember back in the day when you’d be playing pickup ball on the playground with the homies and, every once in a while, some random person would walk across the court and mess up the game.
Maybe they’d catch the ball after a steal or maybe they got in the way of a layup or something. It could literally be anything. All that mattered was they were in the way of the game.
I don’t know how y’all called that on your playground. But on mine? We called that interference. And it was simple. There was a timeout, you’d check the ball up once the court was cleared of the bystanders and then the game starts up again.
Does…does the NBA not have a rule like that? Because, clearly, they needed one last night during the Timberwolves’ game against the Thunder.
Jordan McLaughlin got a steal and was out in the open court. From our vantage point, it looked like a clear layup and an easy two points for the Wolves.
Too bad the Thunder were playing 7-on-5 basketball, though. Clean-up crew to the rescue.
OKC clean-up crew was really on the floor mid-game 😂 pic.twitter.com/rDuMZlrtAC
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 5, 2022
Bruuuuuh. That is unbelievable. They were really mopping up sweat spots during a fastbreak. How often does this happen? That’s wild.
And, look, we can’t really blame them here. They’re just doing their jobs. Nobody can fault them for that. It’s really unfortunate that it happened and that the Wolves couldn’t score.
But this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why that interference rule needs to be a thing.
Luckily the Wolves were up pretty big already so this didn’t really matter. But, man. This is still pretty wild. Fans couldn’t believe this happened.