Watch ref Joey Crawford freeze Kevin Durant before key free throw

Kevin Durant is a career 88% free-throw shooter. He led the league last year, making 90% of his shots, and was seventh this season at 87%.

But with the game on the line Tuesday night, Durant missed a foul shot and the Oklahoma City Thunder went on to lose to the Memphis Grizzlies, 100-99.

Could have been any number of reasons Durant wasn’t able to connect after making the first attempt to pull the Thunder to within one with 27 seconds remaining in the overtime period -- one of which may have been the fact that referee Joey Crawford suddenly ran over to Durant and snatched the ball as the star player was preparing to take the shot.

Crawford then went to the scorers’ table and started screaming about an apparent error in the number of fouls displayed on the scoreboard at Chesapeake Energy Arena. After the bizarre sequence played out, Durant’s second shot came up short.

After the game, though, Durant said it’s his responsibility to play through such distractions.

“I’m not sure what happened, but I’ve got to focus and I’ve got to make that foul shot,” Durant said.

Oklahoma City got a defensive rebound with three seconds remaining, but Durant missed a 28-foot three-point attempt and his team fell behind in the playoff series, 3-2.