Jordan Ott stood at the podium after Phoenix's loss to Denver and said his team got "the short end of the stick" on some of the officiating. Miles Bridges said he thought Dillon Brooks only got ejected because of his reputation. Fans online called the flagrant 2 "rigged." The only person in the building who didn't seem interested in that argument was the guy who got kicked.
Jamal Murray, after Brooks' leg caught him on a falling jumper and referee crew chief Tyler Ford upgraded the call to a flagrant 2 over the PA, told reporters he didn't think Brooks really tried to kick him there. He called Brooks a buddy. The two play together for Canada's national team. A player who believed the refs had manufactured his friend's ejection to help the other team win wouldn't talk about him that way.
Brooks extended his leg into Murray's groin area as he fell backward from a jumper. Officials called an offensive foul in real time, then reviewed it and upgraded it to a flagrant 2, an automatic ejection under league rules. That's exactly the kind of play the flagrant 2 rule exists to punish: extraneous contact to a vulnerable area on a non-basketball move. Ford applied the rule correctly to a play that looked ugly the moment it happened.
Rating
RatingNow look at the rest of the box score Phoenix would rather not discuss. Denver shot 30 free throws to Phoenix's 11. Phoenix committed 22 fouls to Denver's 13. That gap happens because Phoenix's defense spent the night reaching and grabbing jump shooters, and the whistle did what it's supposed to do every time that happens. A near three-to-one free throw disparity tells you how a team defended for 48 minutes.
None of this means Tyler Ford is above criticism. He's been a recurring name in officiating controversies around the league this season, including a dispute earlier this year with Golden State over a non-call that went Denver's way. That's a real pattern worth the league's attention. A pattern across unrelated games isn't evidence he tilted this one, though, and Phoenix's own locker room, when it wasn't performing outrage for the cameras, didn't actually back the theory either.
RTGWhat happened here is simpler than a rigged-referee story, and it doesn't flatter Phoenix. A team that was favored to lose by 4.5 points fouled its way into a 30-11 free throw deficit and only looked locked in defensively in the final stretch. Phoenix beat itself for three and a half quarters, then remembered how to play defense once it was already too late. It's a team that isn't disciplined enough yet to beat a good one, and blaming Tyler Ford is the easiest way to avoid saying so.
