Natalie Sago becomes 3rd woman ever picked to referee NBA playoff games

NBA referee Natalie Sago thought a bad call was about to take place. A bad phone call, that is.

She was wrong.

The NBA on Monday announced the list of 36 officials selected to work this season's play-in tournament and first round of the playoffs. Sago is on the list, making her the third woman in league history — after Violet Palmer and Ashley Moyer-Gleich — to be picked for postseason work.

Sago got the word on Saturday from Albert Sanders, the NBA executive who runs referee operations. She was arriving at the airport in Salt Lake City when the call came in.

“I see his name pop up and I was like: ‘Oh boy, here we go. Did we screw something up in the game last night in Utah?’" said Sago, a veteran of more than 400 NBA games. “But then that phone call turned out to be a pretty awesome phone call.”

Evidently, she's been involved in plenty of good calls.

Less than half of the NBA's referees each season get playoff assignments. Sago wondered when her chance would come; she and Moyer-Gleich were promoted to the league's full-time staff in 2018, when they became the fourth and fifth women in league history to reach that level. More have followed.

“When you’re on a high wire with no net under you and you’re depending on the person to catch you, you don’t really care what gender they are," said Monty McCutchen, who oversees referee development and training for the NBA. “What you care about is whether they’ve been trained properly, and whether you can trust that they will be there for you when you need them. And that’s one of the things that’s really important that, in my opinion, we’ve gotten right.”

Playoff officials are selected, the league said, “based on key criteria assessed throughout the season: NBA Referee Operations grades and rankings, play-calling accuracy and team rankings.” Further evaluations take place after each playoff round.

“It’s such an honor,” Sago said. "I couldn’t be more excited and ready to just put on a performance for the other women coming behind me and all the young little girls that are going to be watching the playoffs.”

Palmer worked nine playoff games from 2006-12; Moyer-Gleich worked two in 2024. Sago's first assignment this year — the league doesn't announce what referees are where until the day of the game — will be the 12th for a woman in NBA playoff history.

“I hope it does become normal," Sago said. "As long as we can do the work and do it well and work hard, it’s the same thing the men do on the staff. I just want us all to be NBA referees. I don’t want to be known as, ‘Oh, you’re the fifth female hired in the NBA ever.’ OK, great. I know that. But we're all the same people. We do the same job.”

The playoff referees are Ray Acosta, Brent Barnaky, Curtis Blair, Tony Brothers, Nick Buchert, John Butler, James Capers, Sean Corbin, Kevin Cutler, Eric Dalen, Marc Davis, JB DeRosa, Mitchell Ervin, Tyler Ford, Brian Forte, Scott Foster, Pat Fraher, Jacyn Goble, John Goble, Jason Goldenberg, Courtney Kirkland, Marat Kogut, Karl Lane, Mark Lindsay, Tre Maddox, Ed Malloy, Andy Nagy, Gediminas Petraitis, Kevin Scott, Ben Taylor, Josh Tiven, Justin Van Duyne, James Williams, Sean Wright, Zach Zarba and Sago.

Foster (262), Davis (218), Brothers (216), Capers (204), Zarba (173), John Goble (151), Malloy (150), Wright (104) and Corbin (100) have all worked at least 100 playoff games.

Sago — whose father has officiated basketball for more than 30 years — and Goldenberg are the two first-time selections to the playoff staff.

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