The Knicks are filing a protest with the league, disputing their controversial 105-103 loss to the Rockets on Monday, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN tweets.
Both the NBA’s L2M (last two minutes) report and crew chief Ed Malloy acknowledged that the foul call on Jalen Brunson in the final second, leading to Aaron Holiday’s two winning free throws, was erroneous. Had the call not been made, the game would have gone to overtime.
Teams have 48 hours to file a protest with the league office and five days to provide evidence of the protested action. The league office has five more days to make a decision.
Only six protests in league history have been upheld. It’s unlikely the Knicks’ will be the seventh, since a successful protest requires the team to prove that a rule was misapplied, not just that the officials got a judgment call wrong, notes Fred Katz of The Athletic (Twitter link).
An example of that is the last protest that was upheld. Miami protested a Dec. 19, 2007 loss to Atlanta, ESPN’s Bobby Marks notes (Twitter link). Shaquille O’Neal was removed from the game when he supposedly fouled out with 51.9 seconds left overtime. Upon review, he only had five fouls, not six, and those last 51.9 seconds were replayed.
New York and Houston are not scheduled to play again this season, so there could be complications with rescheduling the OT session in the unlikely event that the Knicks win the protest.
I guess if you got a fancy and expensive lawyer, a wrong judgement call (like the one being protested) could be seen as a rule being misapplied; the foul was called because a rule was broken. If the rule was not broken, as has been admitted, the rule was misapplied.
Interesting, that seems to have some merit
If this had happened at the 12 minute mark, “the rule was misapplied” would have been just as true. Should the league then restart the game from the 12 minute mark?
I mean, how many calls are missed over the course of a game? Any one of them can affect the outcome, not just the one at the end of the game.
It blows, but just man up and move on.
At .3 seconds left and an obvious non foul in a tight division, yeah, it matters.
Whether intentionally or not, you missed my point entirely.
No, I didn’t. The game adjusts based on those calls during the game, but when it’s at a critical point in the game, like .3 seconds left, refs need to be spot on and not decide the game themselves. There was zero consistency for the entire game.
I mean, they have “manned up” and moved on but why not file the protest? It costs nothing in the grand scheme of things and maybe you get lucky and are successful (which I personally think won’t happen). It’s a dereliction of duty to not file the protest.
Because there is zero chance it will be successful. As the article states the only chance of success is if a rule is applied wrong,
They’re appealing a judgment call. They Knicks are just posturing
I agree. If you put everything under a microscope, nobody will know what they’re looking at.
Mostly peaceful*
Won’t help, ref’s are never wrong. @ the very least teams are talking up about the officiating more. Malloy is trash, get him with Brothers and Forster and we have a real circus.
As much as I think the Refs blew this one, I don’t think the Knicks will, or expect to win. I think this is management showing their players they have their backs.
Truth is, if they reverse this, every game is going to be contested moving forward. The NBA doesn’t want that, it has to be an actual rule and not a judgement that gets questioned.
Exactly. You are filing it not necessarily to win, but more to show your players you care. And maybe you get super lucky and are successful.
In the era of “points of emphasis”, is there still a distinction between a judgement call and a rules interpretation? In theory, it should come down to what the Ref who made the call believed, at the time. Was it 1) that the contact was impactful (judgement), or 2) that the contact didn’t have to be impactful to warrant a foul call (a misinterpretation of the rules). Did he mis-see it, or did he see it clearly but didn’t know the rules.
FWIW, I don’t think its either. I think he knew the rule and saw the play clearly enough. I think he was hestiant to not make a foul call if there was contact, and was predisposed to see it as impactful unless he was sure it clearly wasn’t. It’s ref’ing by formula, and NBA Refs have raised it to an art form. In fairness, it may be the safest way for a Ref to proceed in light the NBA’s constant revisions of its officating rules via points of emphasis. The league has a clear end game, and its not balanced officiating.
An interesting take, from an interesting person. I think you’re right on point. Thank you for the input.
Even the wrong calls in the playoffs are not being reviewed or overturn. Refs are gods in the NBA…
NBA refs are part of Vegas they fix games all the time every day
Knicks were favored. Don’t get why. This is what they should be most concerned about.
link to cbssports.com