Nick Nurse blames referees for 76ers’ meltdown in Game 2 loss

76ers head coach Nick Nurse appeared to be calling timeout before Maxey received the inbound pass. But the referees didn’t grant the timeout, which led to the Knicks scoring two threes in rapid succession.

Nurse during his postgame press conference addressed the sequence that doomed his squad. The veteran coach was adamant that he had called timeout on two separate occasions but was ignored by the officials both times.

“I called timeout. The referee looked right at me, and ignored me. Tyrese Maxey got the ball. I called timeout again, he ignored me again,” Nurse said.

The 76ers got huge scoring outings from stars Maxey and Joel Embiid. The Sixers tandem scored 34 and 35 respectively despite both not being at 100% health.

Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson led his team with 24 points but shot just 8-of-29 from the field. His teammates picked up the slack as all five Knicks starters finished in double figures to take a 2-0 series lead.