Knicks file protest with NBA, hope for replay against Rockets

The New York Knicks have officially filed a protest with the NBA regarding their 105-103 loss to the Houston Rockets on the game played Monday, Feb. 12, at the Toyota Center.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN first reported the news on Tuesday, which was later confirmed by Fred Katz of The Athletic and Peter Botte of the New York Post, per sources reaching out to them.

Even if you’re just a casual basketball fan, you have probably heard about what happened on Monday in the matchup between the Knicks and the Rockets. If you haven’t, here’s a quick recap.

With the clock winding down in the fourth quarter, the game tied at 103, and the Knicks stopping Houston on its tracks with a block by Precious Achiuwa inside the paint, the ricocheting ball fell to Rockets point guard Aaron Holiday outside the 3-point arc. A savvy veteran, Holiday hoisted a hail mary with Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson rushing toward him, and ultimately touching his leg.

By the time the shooting foul was called, there were only 0.3 seconds on the clock. Holiday went to the free-throw line, scored a couple of freebies, missed the third shot on purpose, and that was it. Josh Hart grabbed the defensive board for the Knicks and called a timeout but that was seemingly out of time so the refs called it a day and packed their bags like nothing had happened.

Right after the game, however, crew chief Ed Malloy admitted that the on-court shooting foul call made by ref Jacyn Goble was wrong, that Brunson only made “incidental contact,” and that the play should not have resulted in a foul upon review of the action.

“After seeing it during a postgame review, the offensive player was able to return to a normal playing position on the floor. The contact, which occurred after the release of the ball, therefore is incidental and marginal to the shot attempt and should not have been called.” — Crew Chief Ed Malloy

The protest will cost the Knicks a $10,000 fee, as stipulated by the NBA, and the odds they win their case are minimal. In NBA history, only six times has a team filed a protest and won, the last one more than 15 years ago when the Miami Heat successfully earned a replay in the 2008 season.

Back then, however, the Heat were arguing that Shaquille O’Neal was incorrectly ruled out of the game with a sixth foul that was actually his fifth, per ESPN research. Now, as you can see, that was a factual, objective error on the referee's part. What happened last Monday, on the other hand, was simply a subjective call made by a referee on the court with barely a second left to play.

That alone, of course, doesn’t mean the call was right—the NBA admitted it wasn’t just a few minutes after the circus was over.

The problem is that by submitting a protest in the 48-hour window after the offense took place in their eyes, the Knicks will need to prove and present enough evidence supporting their claims. That’s going to be a tall task considering the league stipulates that a protest must prove the “misapplication” of a rule, not just a “missed call,” as it seemed to be the case (only in reverse) on Monday’s matchup.

That is why, per ESPN Stats & Research, only six times (out of 44) has a protest succeeded in the past 41 years—the first one in 1952 and the last one in 2007.

Once the Knicks submit said evidence, the league will make an official announcement on the final verdict within five days.

Again, the Knicks are right in claiming the call was wrong. The NBA has said the call was wrong. The official league’s Last Two Minute report confirmed that Brunson had contested Holiday’s shot legally and that there should have been no call against New York, thus leading the game to overtime (Holiday missed the shot).

This is probably going to end the same way it started: with a loss. That said, the Knicks are believed to be making a case based on another call that took place earlier in the same game, precisely at the end of the first half when Donte DiVincenzo hosted a similar shot to Holiday’s, earned a shooting foul... and was later denied the free-throw attempts after Houston requested a challenged and succeeded at it.

In case New York wins the protest, there should be a replay of the remainder of the game, which in this case means a five-minute overtime considering the play wrongly called for a foul would have ended in a missed shot and nothing after that.

The Knicks and the Rockets, however, have already faced each other twice so the league would need to find a way to find a pocket to re-schedule that overtime at some point after the All-Star break.

The only remotely recent case, that 2007-08 Heat game, was re-scheduled from Dec. 19 (original date) to Mar. 8. However, that postponed overtime was played before another Heat vs. Hawks matchup taking place after that in a kinda-double-header day in Atlanta. Before that one, the prior successful protest took place back in 1982, and the original game (Nov. 30) was resumed on Apr. 13 the following calendar year.

The Houston Rockets filed a protest five years ago when they argued a dunk by James Harden wasn’t given in a game ending in a loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Dec. 2019. They failed at convincing the league they were right even though the chief official admitted the crew of referees in the original game, in fact, had missed the dunk and that Houston should have been awarded two points for it.

If anything, New York will at least generate some buzz around the Association and among casual fans regarding the officiating ruling the league these days—days in which, just in case you’ve been living under a rock, there are a gazillion replays and angles available for the refs to check on a nightly basis, live on location, to call the plays as they should, not as they want to.

Alas, here we are. “Great call, next question.”