With the Dallas Mavericks leading Minnesota 2-0 in the conference finals with Games 3 and 4 being played in Dallas, everyone remembers Luka Doncic's game-winning 3-pointer in the final seconds of Game 2. Not many remember what happened 44 seconds earlier, when the Mavericks were trailing by two with 47 seconds left and a replay overturned an out-of-bounds call, giving them the decisive possession.
Minnesota was eventually awarded possession of the ball, but Dallas challenged the ruling, claiming that Jaden McDaniels had last touched the ball. Dallas won the challenge because the ball had indeed last touched McDaniels, but it missed the context that Kyrie Irving had clearly fouled McDaniels, striking him with his forearm and knocking the ball off McDaniels' fingertips, causing it to go out of bounds.
Now, go and see for yourself.
Irving clearly fouled McDaniels, but that's not reviewable because it wasn't an original on-court call. The letter of the law says the only action that can be reviewed is the person who actually touched the ball last, which is the call at issue. If Irving could have taken an axe to McDaniels' arm and the ball ended up dribbling off McDaniels' bloody nerve endings, well, tough luck. Dallas' ball.
Here is Friday night's pool report from crew chief Zach Zarba.
question: During the review that led to Jaden McDaniels' turnover late in the game, can you explain whether you saw the foul that should have been called at the time?
Zarba“During the game, we felt it was a normal out-of-bounds play and that's what was called. Naturally, it was challenged and the replay center overturned it because it ended up touching McDaniels. In the post-game review, we saw that (Kyrie) Irving made illegal contact with McDaniels' forearm, but it should have been called a foul.
question: Just to be clear, Dallas disputed the play at that point, and Minnesota can't challenge that call by arguing they were fouled and the ball went out of bounds?
Zarba: That's correct, under NBA rules you can't challenge the lack of a foul call in that case.
question: Had Minnesota challenged first, could they have argued sooner that he was fouled rather than the ball going out of bounds? Or is that unchallengable?
Zarba: No, you can't appeal a no-call, and you can't appeal an out of bounds call that was awarded to you because the ball was originally awarded to Minnesota.
This was a completely stupid rule that probably cost Minnesota the game, maybe the series, and maybe a shot at their first championship. That's how important it was. If the rule had been applied correctly on the court, McDaniels would have gone to the free throw line with 47 seconds left and given Minnesota a four-point lead. But Dallas got the ball down by two, and their next point was a game-winning three-pointer by Luka Doncic.
This is very easy. You look at the replay monitor and the right call is made. Plain and simple. It's insane that you can only use a portion of the visual information that's provided. The league says they don't want on-court replays of no-calls to ruin the flow of the game. But that doesn't make sense. Teams are allowed a certain number of challenges. Use them however you like. It takes the same amount of time to see if you were fouled as it does to see if you weren't fouled. It's that simple.
Also, play was stopped anyway! Even if you didn't make a no-call reviewable, if the umpire was already reviewing something on the monitor, teeth Within the letter of the replay rules, if an official sees something that directly affects a decision on the court, he or she should have the authority to make the correct call.
The WNBA understands this, so I don’t know why the NBA doesn’t.
From the WNBA's official rule book:
If the ball goes out of bounds because of a clear foul by a team that did not last touch it, the umpire may award the ball to the team that last touched it. No foul will be charged.
Here's the basic logic: The NBA may change this rule in the future, and in fact, I'd be surprised if the league doesn't. But before the NBA rulemakers change the rule, they should not have called for a call that beat the Timberwolves and determined the outcome of the conference finals. It was pretty easy to predict that something like this would happen at this stage of such a big game, with such an obvious call.
That's not good for Minnesota at all. Irving fouled McDaniels, who should have hit two free throws with a chance to extend Minnesota's lead with under a minute left in the game, but instead gave the Mavericks the ball with two points and won it with a 3-pointer 44 seconds left.
It is an inexcusable failure on the part of the NBA to correct this illogical application of replay rules before a situation like this occurred, and if the WNBA understands that, so should the NBA.
