Lakers News: NBA Last Two-Minute Report Confirms Referees Missed Foul Call Against Dallas
Well, Los Angeles Lakers fans, if you think your Lakers may have been denied some potentially game-sealing charity stripe tries at some point during a chippy 119-115 double-overtime loss against the Dallas Mavericks, the NBA agrees with you.
Dave McMenamin of ESPN reports that the NBA released its Last Two Minutes Report for the bout today.
The league decided that Mavericks small forward Tim Hardaway Jr. did not foul Lakers small forward Troy Brown Jr. while blocking this attempt at a buzzer-beating triple in regulation, despite TBJ's passive aggressive postgame protestations:
LeBron James, Troy Brown Jr., and head coach Darvin Ham were all frustrated by what they deemed to be a no-call at the end of the fourth quarter during this play.
Officiating crew chief Josh Tiven disagreed, per McMenamin. "Hardaway Jr. gets a piece of the ball on the closeout and then does make some high-five contact, which is legal and that play was correctly no-called," Tiven noted.
"No, it's a f---ing foul," James responded in the locker room when he heard a report relay Tiven's quote. "It's a foul. No matter what [Brown] says [now], it's a f---ing foul. That s--- is blatant, and they should have called it."
Ham spoke with reporters postgame about the incident.
"I mean, it looked to me like it was a foul on the shot," Ham opined. "I'm not one to blame the officiating, and I won't start now," Ham began before blaming the officiating, "but it just looked clear as daylight like it was a foul. I could be wrong, but even still watching it after the game, it looked like a foul on his follow through."
That said, the NBA did determine that Dallas center Christian Wood did foul LeBron James on this baseline up-and-under try, despite contact not being recognized in the moment:
