Adam Silver says, "Sorry, suckers! You can't get your money back!"

I don’t think the league had any reason to give Denver the game. They wouldn’t foul out Jokic with another player nearby who could have taken his foul (Murray). They just made a somewhat ticky tack call that, by clear video evidence, IS a foul. It sucks. Maybe Hardaway did purposefully fall. But it’s also very possible he didn’t. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen guys trip on a football field from the turf monster, or trip over the three point line in basketball. It doesn’t take much to throw your balance off in those situations.

and some of this needs to go back on amen. This isn’t the first time he’s played way too aggressive on an end of game defensive possession. Gotta take the good with the bad. He followed too closely and got caught.

 

Not sure that constitutes “incidental contact.” It caused him to trip. It’s not like football.

In the NBA, incidental contact is unintentional contact that doesn't affect a player's speed, balance, rhythm, or ability to play the ball.

Amens contact caused him to lose balance. That’s not incidental.

 

I'm not sure but I believe you're quoting this:
https://official.nba.com/rule-no-12-fouls-and-penalties/

You'll note that the phrase "contact with the hand" is fundamental here.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a clear citation that "a player running in a 1 possession game with 2 seconds left whose foot brushes the shin of a player behind him and loses his balance is definitely a foul worth losing the game over".

Most officials (across all sports) are going to be careful about reflexively whistling any time someone falls down in the final minute - especially when it's away from the ball.

 

The pass was clearly going to him. He would have likely gotten a 5 second call if they didn’t call it. There were a lot worse calls than this. Just because it had a major impact doesn’t mean it wasn’t a justified call. You can’t trip a player and expect to get away with it just because it’ll cost you the game. You can’t dismiss a foul that clearly made him fall just because it was barely a foul. It was a foul. He did trip him. And that’s on Amen. Not the refs.

 

Much more worrisome was Amen's clean steal of the ball, which would have been a layup/dunk over Murray that was called a foul and two FTs, and Durant's clean block, which would have erased two points, resulting in two more FTs.

Amen's play at the end of regulation was unfortunate and could have been a no-call. If Murray had the same thing happen to him and he grazed Amen, the way the game was called, it would have been a play on, incidental contact. There was a level of disrespect from the refs directed toward the entire Rocket team.

I'm still hoping Ime will hold out and not pay the fine. I'd love to see how the league would react.

 

The unspoken suspicion is that it was about manipulating betting payouts. No further motive is needed.

 

I was actually gone for a few years.
Ironically, other than the constant losing being extremely frustrating, the tanking years were quite fun. Young talent that gets better and no matter how much the refs screw us over, I wouldn't care all that much.

After Game 7 of the 2018 WCF I lost interest in the NBA and it has not really recovered in years. This year I thought I give it another try but I'm not sure if I want to deal with this.

 

There were multiple really bad decisions by the refs so this isn't just the Amen foul even tho I personally think **** like this should never ever be the play to make the game go to overtime.
L2M report has 3 bad ref decisions, all of them going against us.

Who knows why the refs wanted the Denvers to win but apparently they did want them to win.

 

Not disagreeing, but you'd think we would have gotten better calls w Yao to grow the China audience.

 

I mean I get it. It sucks to have a game end that way.

But think honestly for a second. If that was Amen being chased by Hardaway...there's no WAY this board wouldn't be outraged that it wasn't called. People online would say "he barely touched him" and we'd be screaming "BUT THAT STILL MEANS HE TOUCHED HIM!" The refs were put in a predicament there. Now, I thought on the replay they could have given themselves an out and said inadvertent whistle (if that's allowed). Because Denver would have almost certainly have turned the ball over or gotten a 5 second violation and Hardaway had a clear entry pass lane, they couldn't let it slide -- particularly on the live whistle before replay.

Nothing excuses their missed calls. This just wasn't really one of them. That play was just an unfortunate incident where Amen played just a fraction too aggressive.

 

It's not worth the headache and it's a true waste of time.