It happened again. The series is tied. The air feels rigged. And just hours after the Oklahoma City Thunder clawed their way back into the NBA Finals with a 111-104 win over the Indiana Pacers, something strange echoed from the past, louder than any buzzer. Tim Donaghy, the disgraced ex-referee who literally served prison time for betting on games he officiated, and former best friend of Scott Foster, resurfaced with a damning reminder of what the NBA allegedly looks like behind closed doors. And now, Adam Silver is in trouble.

“You know, I think that, you know, when I was there, that the league would come in and if a team was up two games to none or three games to none in a series, they put the referees in a locker room and they’d show us 15 or 20 plays… And those plays always went for the team that was down in the series and against the team that was up,” Donaghy said in a resurfaced clip. “So that’s how they would manipulate the series… so it would be a 6-7 game series.” Now, Tim is the original referee villain. So, when he says Adam Silver’s league nudged refs to swing momentum? Yeah, it scratched just the right itch, especially with all the talk around Scott Foster after Finals Game 4.

He even recalled a league official tipping Jeff Van Gundy off about a targeted crackdown on Yao Ming. Sound familiar? A tied Finals. Foster on the whistle. And the script is playing out.. yet again. Which makes you wonder if Game 5 can be trusted? Or are we just watching reruns in real time? And if this piece of news alone made you go all “what the heck just happened,” you’re not alone. But wait till you hear the rest of the story.

Because most fans didn’t walk away from Game 4 talking about clutch shots or momentum swings… they were counting whistles. 71 free throws. Seventy-one. The Thunder got 38 attempts and knocked down 34 of them, shooting an absurd 89.4%. The Pacers? 25-for-33. It doesn’t sound like much until you realize it’s literally the difference between a win and a loss.

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault didn’t see a problem. “There were a c— ton of fouls. That’s why there were a c— ton of free throws. I thought the referees did a good job,” he said post-game. Maybe he’s not complaining because his squad walked away with the win, and cashed in at the line like seasoned vets. But Pacers coach Rick Carlisle? He was less thrilled. “You know, they had 38 free throws, and that was a problem. They made 34 to 38, we had 33 and made 25… the difference of four is significant.”

Carlisle wasn’t just pointing fingers at the officiating, though. He called out his own squad’s failure to hit the glass and lock in on “the basics.” Because somewhere between the rebounding lapses and missed free throws, Indiana let their grip on the series slip. And yet, amid all the talk of basics, nothing about these Finals feels simple. Not with Foster front and center. Not when the league’s most controversial whistleblower is out here, dropping allegations like Adam Silver’s league comes down, programs and trains the referees… and those plays always go for the team that’s down in the series and against the team that was up.

Adam Silver can’t escape the optics, even if the whistle is silent

The league’s L2M report cleared the officiating crew after Game 4, but the court of public opinion isn’t that forgiving. Especially when the face of the league is Adam Silver and the most-talked-about name isn’t Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Tyrese Haliburton, but Scott “the Extender” Foster. Because even Bill Simmons said, “It was a typical Scott Foster all over the map, just involved like weird stoppages, missed calls, like calling touch fouls, then not calling somebody getting clubbed in the head.” And if you think all this outrage is just noise, wait until you remember who Foster used to share bedtime stories with.

Donaghy and Foster were tight. As in “godfathers to each other’s kids” tight. From late 2006 to early 2007, Donaghy called Foster 134 times during the exact stretch he was betting on games. The FBI noticed. Fans did too. Foster insisted it was all innocent, just two friends catching up on the road. But 134 calls? Around rigged games? Sounds more like co-conspirators than carpool buddies.

So then, naturally, when Donaghy’s betting scandal broke in 2007, that friendship? Radio silent. Though officially Foster did not cut ties with him, he never looked back either, leaving behind a trail of questions that fans are still asking almost two decades later. Add in resurfaced Donaghy clips, and it’s a PR nightmare. Fans are starting to connect the dots, even if those dots look more like memes and conspiracy tweets. The narrative is about a pattern. One where high-stakes games mysteriously tilt just enough to extend the series, sell a few more ads, and juice those broadcast ratings.

And for the Pacers? The pressure’s doubled. Game 5 now carries the weight of a franchise trembling on the edge of a Finals collapse. So what now? Will Adam Silver address the growing distrust? Will Foster continue to call games while trending more than the All-Stars on the floor? Or has the league already lost the trust battle, no matter what the score says?