Fact Check: Did Chris Paul Cheer After Scott Foster’s Bloody Injury During Timberwolves vs OKC?

“We had a situation some years ago, and it’s personal. The league knows, everybody knows, and it’s been a meeting and all that,” said Chris Paul back in November 2023, about the feud between him and famous NBA referee Scott Foster. Sports Illustrated reporter Chris Mannix had gone on to describe it as amongst “the most bizarre player-referee rivalries in sports history …”. The player seldom shied away from making his criticism about the 58-year-old known. He had good reason for doing so, as seen from the snubs he allegedly received from Foster over the years. However, is the animosity big enough for CP3 to laugh when the referee sustains an injury? Some social media users are certainly claiming this. But let’s do a fact check.

During the recent matchup between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves, Scott Foster got injured after getting hit in the face by Lu Dort on a jump ball. The incident occurred less than 2 minutes after the game began. Foster reportedly had to get medical attention to get his nose to stop bleeding.

He left the game floor, but soon returned to it after getting some gauze in his right nostril. That should have been the end of it. However, later on X, footage began circulating of Chris Paul standing up and clapping, along with thousands of Thunder fans.

The post, put out by ‘NBA Centel’, provided a description, which said “Chris Paul seen cheering after Scott Foster took a hit. ”. The same belief was promoted by several other X pages like ‘NBA Memes’, ‘Beastbrook’, etc. Yikes! Knowing the animosity shared between Chris Paul and Scott Foster, people could have been easily fooled into believing that this report was true.

 

Chris Paul seen cheering after Scott Foster took a hit. pic.twitter.com/yo9TUewwWz

— NBACentel (@TheNBACentel) May 23, 2025

Unfortunately, for them, it isn’t. One just has to check that it was put out by ‘NBA Centel’, and that should be enough to dissuade them. After all, over its 2 years of operation, the account became notorious for purposely inaccurately covering current events. All for the fun of trolling certain players, teams, or the NBA as a whole. The account was initially launched as a spoof of ‘NBA Central’. Soon, however, NBA Centel generated a huge fan following and currently boasts around 624.8k followers.

From claims that Joel Embiid announced his retirement after a string of poor performances and injuries, to implying that Shaquille O’Neal had made some NSFW remarks to Angel Reese (he hadn’t), one can quite easily fall for the traps laid by NBA Centel. That is how gullible they can make fake news, until you see that it was published by them. Given that the majority of people who had come across the account would have been ‘Centel’d’ at least once, no one can blame you if the recent news fooled you.

Furthermore, judging from the background of the video, one can see that the moment of Chris Paul clapping was captured when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was receiving his MVP trophy. The fact that every Thunder fan was on their feet, and the electronic banners in the stadium were reading “KIA SGA MVP”, confirmed that. Chris Paul had earlier sent a video message to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander after the latter was declared the MVP of this ongoing tournament, the first time he has ever gotten the title throughout his 7-year career. He had also praised Shai in a pre-game segment, stating, “[Shai Gilgeous-Alexander] is selfless. He hoops, he lets his game do the talking…”. Therefore, people can relax in knowing that Chris Paul was not celebrating someone’s misfortune, but rather someone’s good fortune.

Even if it were true that Chris Paul was clapping at Scott Foster getting injured, several fans would have still sided with the player. After all, the history between the duo makes one of them quite bad.

What is the history of the beef between Chris Paul and Scott Foster?

According to NBA reporter Chris Mannix, no one knows where the animosity began. Chris Paul provided some context behind it, back in November 2023, by stating, “It’s a situation with my son and so, yeah. I’m O.K. with a ref talking, saying whatever, just don’t use a tech to get your point across.” The then-Warriors guard refused to provide any additional context and simply said, “It was a whole thing, man. It’s been a thing for a while. I ain’t saying nothing to get fined. It is what it is at this point.”

Since then, the situation between the duo has not died out. Theories emerged that Paul and Foster’s feud caused the referee to allegedly be biased against the player. After all, Chris Paul reportedly holds a 3-17 record in playoff games officiated by Foster. These were the games that Tom Haberstroh, a veteran NBA reporter, claimed that Paul’s teams were favored to win 15 of 20. Instead, they were lost by an average of 11.2 points.

 

I found that Chris Paul’s teams were favored in 15 of 20 playoff games with Foster officiating. They went 3-17 and lost by an average of 11.2 points. I wrote about it all here: https://t.co/6CI3bzeqg9 https://t.co/AGokxVAMgX

— Mr. Statistician Face Man (@tomhaberstroh) November 23, 2023

Things, however, were bad even before Chris Paul indicated that the feud had something to do about his son. Back in January 2018, when Chris Paul was with the Houston Rockets, Foster gave him a technical foul as less than 5 minutes remained in a game against the Portland Trail Blazers. The Rockets did go on to win that regular-season game, but Paul was still not happy.

During the post-game presser, he sarcastically said, “Yeah, Scott Foster at his finest. You know what I mean? He just never fails. Some of them, you can [communicate] with. You’ve just gotta figure out who you can and you can’t. I got a tech tonight. I’m over there with [referee Courtney Kirkland] saying, ‘That’s Scott, that’s Scott,’ and I got a tech. That’s history there. He the man. That’s who they pay to see.”

Scott Foster is a legend in the NBA community for both good and bad reasons. By March of this year, he had reportedly officiated over 1,675 regular-season games and 241 playoff matchups. The latter also included 24 NBA Finals games. However, despite his experience, the referee has also been given the nickname of ‘The Extender’ by NBA fans. This is due to the belief that Foster was assigned to playoff games when the league wants the series to go longer.

Due to this reason, the 58-year-old is known, but isn’t too famous amongst the NBA fandom. Therefore, many of them wouldn’t have minded if Paul was actually laughing, as NBA Centel claimed.

Feb 4, 2025; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; NBA referee Scott Foster (48) runs on the court in the first quarter of a game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-Imagn Images

With any luck, the duo will fix things up between themselves. If not for each other’s’ sake, then at least for the fact that ‘NBA Centel’ will have one less thing to make fun of if they patch things up.

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