Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban confirmed that the organization has officially submitted evidence in protest with the NBA in association to their 127-125 loss to Golden State Warriors.
The NBA has up to five business days to make a final decision.
The protest is on the confusing scene that led to an easy basket for Kevon Looney without any Mavericks players on that particular side of half court.
“It wasn’t really explained. I think there was a lot of confusion, a lot of people were out of position.” Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd addressed the situation with media. “The court was split – we were on one side, the Warriors were on another – and you have a referee on the baseline, (referee) Mike [Smith] was on the baseline. So I assume Mike [Smith] thought it was our ball, too. To explain or ask Mike, if there’s confusion, it’s easy to just come in and blow the whistle and get us restarted – because there was confusion. We thought it was our ball. The referee pointed towards our bench but that was a signal of the timeout. There was confusion on the play before it even started with whose ball it was. He pointed, I thought, to us first and then he changed it. Then it went to a timeout and pointed to us. As I asked Mike, I said, ‘Mike, why are you there on the floor if it’s not our ball?’ There were quite a few people out of position on that play. It’s easy, it’s correctible but you first have to admit there was a mistake. But there wasn’t, we have to continue to keep playing.”
Pool Report on the Play with 1:54 Left in the Third Quarter of tonight’s Golden State at Dallas Game
The Pool Report interview was conducted with Crew Chief Sean Wright following tonight’s Warriors at Mavericks Game.
QUESTION: Why was possession given to the Warriors on that play after it was originally signaled to be the Mavericks’?
WRIGHT: 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.
The ultimate decision of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is five days after the receipt of evidence. The protest requires a $10,000 fee, which will be refunded if the challenge is determined successful.
The Mavericks have filed a protest with NBA before, hoping the league would re-play the final 9.7 seconds of the game against Atlanta Hawks on February 22, 2020. The protest was in association to a controversial goaltending call on Dorian Finney-Smith in opposition of John Collins. After replay, officials found that there was no goaltending during the attempted shot by Collins but points were still counted. The points gave the Hawks 111-107 lead, which was the final score. Cuban was fined $500,000 for his criticism and actions against the officials in that game. The protest was not upheld.
There hasn’t been a protest successfully challenged since 2008.
“It was kind of weird. I think the refs called it correctly the first time, but when we came out of the timeout, I think the ref on the sideline thought it was our ball.” Luka Dončić talked post-game about the sequence. “I think in those situations they needed to group up. They could have waited because there was a ref all the way on our side. In this situation they just needed to group up.”
The Mavericks will now wait to hear from the NBA on their decision.
UPDATE: The NBA has denied the Mavs protest.
NBA statement cited “game officials could have taken steps to better manage this particular situation…that did not provide a basis…of upholding a game protest.”