NBC Sports’ Jamal Crawford: What to Expect in Spurs-Timberwolves Pivotal GM 5

Wembanyama's elbow turned Game 4 into a flagrant. Game 5 looks like a color-coded cauldron, and the question NBC Sports' Jamal Crawford brought to the show is how the officials handle it.

Crawford's read on the officiating tonight came with one big caveat. The pregame press conference.

"If the refs and everybody else is paying attention to everything else in the world, hearing Coach Miss Johnson's press conference after last game and saying, you know what, I don't condone what he did, but he has to take matters in his own hand, he's been getting beat up on," Crawford said.

The night of the elbow, in Crawford's framing, was the apex of a long line of jersey tugs.

"Reg and I were kind of grabbing each other's arms like, what? Like, oh my gosh," Crawford said. "We had just seen, Wemby's always so cool, calm, and collected. For that moment, he had had one too many jersey tugs. He was like, all right, enough's enough."

The expected officiating posture for Game 5 is tighter, in Crawford's read.

"I know it's game five and you want to let the players decide, but you can't have another situation, not just for Wemby, with anybody, where it takes players away or gets them out the game because it just gets a little bit too physical," Crawford said.

Rich pivoted to Dylan Harper's now-famous courtside reaction in the background of every Wembanyama flagrant photo.

"Yeah, what was your reaction when you saw him?" Crawford said. "Yeah, like Reg and I were kind of grabbing each other's arms. And leaning into Mike like, wow."

Rich asked what Crawford would advise Wembanyama. Stay cool, in Crawford's view, plus a structural fix.

"As this goes forward, not just this season, beyond, you might see that one or two guys who comes off the bench and is like, no, no, no, we're not going for that," Crawford said. "Almost like the protector, the buffer, to kind of make sure things like this don't happen. Jordan had it with Charles Oakley. The Bad Boy Pistons had everybody that was there for Isiah."

The Wembanyama-specific reading of the rest of the playoffs is that staying on the floor is the entire ask.

"For him, I'd tell him to keep his cool because that's what they want you to do," Crawford said. "They want to get you frustrated. They want to get you off the court because there's no other way to deal with him. He can literally do everything on the court."

The proof point Crawford brought was what happened when Wembanyama left the court in Game 4.

"When he went off the court, you could still see how easy it was for the Timberwolves just to drive to the basket," Crawford said. "They were like, oh my gosh, layup after layup, we're going to attack every single time."

Crawford's closing read on the Dylan Harper reaction was a player's read.

"He's got, you thought you had a front row seat to all this?" Crawford said. "He's the one with the front row seat going, oh man. Best seat. I think when he was with, I had him for some time, he was with the monks, he was with Akeem. I think right there he may have tapped into his KG ticket where it was, KG badge was like, nah, we ain't going no more. No more of this."