NBA Refs Defend Bradley Beal's Comical, Insanely Obvious Travel

Late in the Wizards’ loss to the Pistons on Monday night, Bradley Beal took it to the rim. He gathered the ball, took his usual two steps, saw an enormous Blake Griffin looming in his airspace, and then ... just kept walking. As one does. Blake’s face on the replay says it all.

Even Beal knew his four-step no-call was a gift:

That move is barely legible as basketball, and if it’s not a travel, then parsing the tiny movements of pivot feet is just a hilariously vacuous academic exercise by comparison. Anyway, the NBA referees did not take kindly to widespread clowning. Surveying the land and selecting a pleasant little hill to die on, they argue that Beal lost possession, which allowed him to regain his pivot foot and pass the ball before that foot landed.

Beal doesn’t make contact with Griffin, or any other Piston, at any point in his travel between dimensions. If all you have to do is bobble the ball to earn four steps, an unholy beast has been unleashed. Somewhere Kyrie and Harden are weeping with gratitude for this discovery.