Scott Foster 'The Extender,' explained: How controversial NBA referee got his nickname

In response to Foster's alleged role in the series being extended by a game, 11-year NBA veteran Gilbert Arenas took to X (formerly Twitter) to add fuel to the fire of The Extender's narrative.

Arenas' post was simple: Foster's headshot with text reading "series extended" at the bottom.

There are plenty of other examples of Foster-called games that are contrary to the narrative, however. In 2025, longtime NBA writer Tom Haberstroh cited a study that showed there wasn't much evidence to show Foster was really "extending" most series.

In fact, based on game data from Basketball Reference that shows the assigned officials for a playoff game, from the 2020 NBA Playoffs through the 2025 NBA Playoffs, there were 54 games in which Foster was an official and the series was not already tied — meaning a team held the advantage in the series.

In those games, the trailing team in the series won the Foster-officiated game 27 times, which is a 50% win percentage.

In other words, from 2020-25 in the NBA playoffs, trailing teams only "extended" the series half the time in Foster-officiated games.

Here's a look at all of the instances of Foster calling a non-series-tied NBA playoff game between 2020 and 2025:

Scott Foster stats

Foster has refereed 1,929 games in his NBA career, according to Basketball Reference. The home team has won 59.6% of those games while the road team has come out on top 40.4% of the time.

The two teams Foster has refereed the most in his career: Dallas (153) and Boston (141).