53 personal fouls in NBA game with female referees

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers game saw 53 personal fouls and 70 free throws, something that hasn’t happened in the NBA in 70 years.

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The Eastern Conference leaders Cavaliers won 133-129 after overtime, when they were down by 18 points at one point. However, what was notable was that the referees called 53 personal fouls, awarding each team 35 free throws – milestones that haven’t been seen since the 1950s.

“I thought she was really bad today, Natalie,” guard Ty Jerome said of the refereeing team, including female referee Natalie Sago – whose constant whistles tore the game apart. She and her colleagues were booed by the crowd of tens of thousands of spectators throughout the game when they called Donovan Clingan of the Trail Blazers six fouls in just 11 minutes.

Referee Natalie Sago at an NBA game this season

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“The game was torn apart, it was so disjointed,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game. “We have a lot of quality referees in the NBA and it was obviously not a great sight to see. The referees stopped the game over and over again today. I’m going to have to watch the game again and again to figure out what happened.”

Jerome said the referees lost control of the game, making arbitrary and impatient decisions. “I thought what they did in the first half was ridiculous, and what they did in the third half was horrible,” he said.

The last time the NBA saw a game with more than 50 personal fouls was in 1952, when the Milwaukee Hawks played the Baltimore Bullets. The record for fouls in the league was 60 fouls in the Anderson Packers vs. Syracuse Nationals game in 1949.

Natalie Sago, Jenna Schroeder form NBA's first two-woman ref crew | NBA.com

The 2024-2025 NBA season has reached its final stretch. The Cavaliers are the league’s best team at 50-10. They have won 10 straight games and are all but guaranteed the top seed in the Eastern Conference in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the top team with a 49-11 record. In second place are the Los Angeles Lakers, who are on a five-game winning streak after making a blockbuster trade for superstar Luka Doncic.