It was the easiest — and strangest — bucket of Kevon Looney’s career.
It started late in the third quarter when the Warriors’ Anthony Lamb missed a straight-on 3-pointer and in a scramble for the rebound the ball fumbled out of bounds. The baseline official points that it went off the Mavericks and would remain the Warriors’ ball, but then instantly transitions into pointing the other direction to call a Mavericks timeout. Looney goes over to complain that it should be Warriors ball, then walks away satisfied that it is.
Then came the inbounds play.
The Mavericks were confused, they thought it was their ball, and after the game owner Mark Cuban sent out this angry Tweet and later said he would file a protest over the game — an eventual Warriors two-point win (127-125):
After the game, referee crew chief Sean Wright explained the situation this way to a pool reporter.
Initially on the floor the original signal was in fact Golden State ball as this can be seen on video. There is a second signal but that signal is for a mandatory timeout that was due to the Mavs.
Two thoughts here. First, the video of the incident backs up the referee’s account. Still, clearly, there was a communication breakdown about what was happening (especially if it was announced in the arena as Mavericks’ ball, as Cuban said).
Second, why were all the Mavericks at the other end of the court — if it was their ball they still had to inbound it on the baseline. (The ball can only be advanced to midcourt after a timeout in the final two minutes of the game and overtime.) It’s difficult to understand what they were doing.
Cuban can protest, but he’s going to lose this one. And this loss stings, it drops the Mavericks (playing without Kyrie Irving due to foot soreness) one game below .500 and tied with the Lakers for the final two play-in spots in the West, 1.5 games back of the Warriors who remain the No. 6 seeds. The game was Luka Doncic’s return to the court after missing five games and he finished with 30 points and 17 assists.
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Mavericks to protest loss to Warriors after bizarre inbounds play originally appeared on NBCSports.com