NBA Playoffs 2016: League Rules That C.J. McCollum Didn't Travel

According to the NBA's Last Two Minutes report for the Clippers-Blazers game last night, C.J. McCollum did indeed maintain his pivot foot on what proved to be the deciding play, ending the Clippers' season.

You can watch the broadcast angle of the play below:

I've watched this play 100x. Can't tell if CJ travelled. Footwork looks right, but might've dragged his pivot foot. pic.twitter.com/KA86wccmT0

— Larson Ishii (@KingLarsonal) April 30, 2016

While C.J.'s balance seems precarious and it looks as if he almost had to have dragged his pivot foot to pull off that maneuver, I have to concede that I can't be certain from that angle that he traveled.  If better footage exists to show his foot at that moment, I haven't seen it, but it ultimately doesn't matter.  Even if C.J.'s foot did drag, it was simply a missed close call at the end of a close game, which sucks but happens.  The Clippers had other opportunities to win this game (Paul Pierce allowing Gerald Henderson to get an offensive rebound off of a missed free throw late in the game) without leaving it in the hands of the officials to help them out.

The league also confirmed that Jeff Green's loose ball foul after McCollum missed the shot in question was valid.  Watching live, I thought that their arms got tangled naturally and that it didn't need to be called, but by the book it's understandable that it was upheld.

The only mistake that the league self-reported was a missed offensive foul call on Plumlee with 1:45 remaining.  Plumlee finished with four fouls, so this wouldn't have disqualified him from the remainder of the game.  Jamal Crawford would not have been awarded free throws if the call was correct, so the Clippers didn't lose any points.  However, after the missed moving screen call, Paul Pierce fouled Damian Lillard while helping Crawford recover, sending Dame to the line for two FTs that the Blazers otherwise would not have had.

Overall, I'm not taking incredible exception to any of the officiating to end the game last night, admittedly erroneous or otherwise.  At best, you could argue that the Clippers were on the wrong end of a couple of 50-50 calls, and a correctly called moving screen would have put LAC down 4 instead of down 6 as they fought to come back.  That changes the closing strategy for both teams, but it probably doesn't change the outcome.  As I said above, the Clippers had enough opportunities to win the game for themselves without relying on being the beneficiaries of every 50-50 call.  This was hardly a 2014 vs OKC-level screwing by the officials.