{"id":43833,"date":"2025-05-19T21:16:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/43833\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:16:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:16:12","slug":"expect-chris-finch-to-inevitably-attempt-to-influence-nba-referees-against-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/43833\/","title":{"rendered":"Expect Chris Finch to inevitably attempt to influence NBA referees against Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a certain point in the Western Conference Finals, Chris Finch will upset OKC. He will go on a postgame rant about the officials. It’ll either be about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander being awarded ticky-tack fouls or the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> being allowed to get away with physical defense that should be penalized. Or both.<\/p>\n

As brilliant a head coach as Finch is, he’s equally blunt. The Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> have enjoyed their most success in decades over the last two seasons. They’re in the Western Conference Finals in back-to-back years.<\/p>\n

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The feat stands stronger this year. After Karl-Anthony Towns was shockingly traded, everybody interpreted that move as the Timberwolves punting on this season to shave off their payroll. Well, that couldn’t have been more wrong. Finch worked his magic as Minnesota transformed from a top-heavy roster to a deep rotation as Anthony Edwards leaped into superstardom.<\/p>\n

One of the ways Finch tries to influence games goes beyond the court. If you follow the NBA long enough, you’ll know head coaches occasionally spill their gripes about the officials. Heck, he’s done it once already<\/a> with OKC way back in February when Minnesota shocked the first seed with a 25-point comeback win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s so frustrating to play this team because they foul a ton. They really do. They foul, they foul all the time,” Finch said. “And then you can’t really touch Shai. It’s a very frustrating thing, and it takes a lot of mental toughness to play through it.”<\/p>\n

Instead of celebrating the historic win, Finch spent his postgame presser sending a message to the referees in case these teams met again in the playoffs. Well, that day has finally arrived. Before Game 1 even tips off, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault tried to kill any shot of Finch weaponizing his public words.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe prepare the team for the games first of all. I said this in the Denver series because it came up there too \u2014 teams, players, coaches are going to use the media to try to influence the whistle as a competitive advantage,” Daigneault said. “… My mentality on that is it\u2019s the Western Conference Finals. The guys working these games aren\u2019t here for accident. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re influenced by anything I say or nothing our team says. I don\u2019t think they\u2019re compromised by what anybody else says.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let’s see if Daigneault’s preemptive comments can cut off Finch’s possible route if the Timberwolves fall behind in the series. He’s not the only NBA player or coach to bring up the Thunder’s calls and non-calls. While their reputation might be tarnished, referees are hopefully smart enough to know that what’s said on social media and what happens on the court should be separated.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Expect Chris Finch to attempt to influence referees against Thunder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a certain point in the Western Conference Finals, Chris Finch will upset OKC. He will go on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[375,7,2026,301,563,1622,152,6,378,310,475,179,3966,3965,209,312,3460],"class_list":{"0":"post-43833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-anthony-edwards","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-chris-finch","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","13":"tag-mark-daigneault","14":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-okc","17":"tag-oklahoma","18":"tag-oklahoma-city","19":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","20":"tag-oklahomacity","21":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","22":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","23":"tag-thunder","24":"tag-western-conference-finals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114536578909183745","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}