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The Nuggets lost to the Memphis Grizzlies 108-107 Tuesday night in controversial fashion.
After a Mike Conley steal on a Denver inbounds pass, Conley dribbled the ball down the length of the floor and lost the ball out of bounds. After reviewing the play, the referees stood by their call on the floor that the ball touched Mudiay before going out of bounds. Memphis then won the game on a Marc Gasol lob.
Take a look for yourself:
After watching the inconclusive replay postgame and reading over the league’s “Last two-minute report,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone wants an explanation.
From shootaround Thursday morning:
“Well, the replay center is there to make sure that those mistakes don’t happen so all I will say on it is this: The replay center failed us the other night. We lost a game, and granted that we did a lot of things during that game that did not help us win, but when it comes down to a review by the replay center to determine who’s ball it is and the ball is awarded to Memphis when it should have been awarded to us and they therefore take advantage of the situation and score. That is a very tough pill to swallow.”
“Obviously we are looking at every and anyway to see what our options are moving forward. To see if there is any way to change the outcome of the game. to replay the final seven tenths of a second of the game whatever it may be because certain calls are not reviewable. Foul or no foul. Travel or no travel. Out of bounds and possession is one of the things that they spend a lot of time on at our head coaches meetings and GM meetings talking about how effective and great out replay center is. Well it wasn’t that great the other night. I feel bad for our guys because we did enough to win that game and we didn’t because of an error made in Secaucus.”
League rules that ball DID NOT go off Mudiay after Grizzlies steal. Should have been Denver ball – incorrect callhttps://t.co/8xlUQEEEQe pic.twitter.com/Y9Q4ZiDoGQ
— Harrison Wind (@HarrisonWind) November 10, 2016
The NBA has yet to reach out to the Nuggets about the end-of-game sequence as of this morning.
“We had to find out from ourselves,” Malone explained. “One of my assistant coaches looked at the last two-minute report yesterday and called me and I was the one who informed Tim Connelly and Josh Kroenke. Nobody knew about it. So, I know that NBA likes to say that we are very transparent in everything that we do, but we found out about the last two-minute report by looking at it from ourselves and once again once I contacted Tim and once I contacted Josh we contacted the league to let them know that we are displeased by the findings of the last two minutes report and to see what our options are moving forward.”
Malone suggests the Nuggets and Grizzlies replay the final five or so seconds of the game.
“I don’t see why not. They have done it before. Back when Miami played Atlanta, I think it was 1998, and they had incorrectly fouled a player out of the game that should not have been fouled out of the game. So next time those two teams played they finished up the last, whatever time that first game was, with that player on the floor. So there is some precedent. Whether or not they do that I have no idea. It is our hope that in light of their mistake that they would be willing to. With seven-tenths of a second on the clock with the chances of us losing that game with possession are zero. We feel it is some thing they should and need to consider but obviously that is stuff for (Commissioner) Adam Silver and the league to decide.”
We’ll wait and see if the league takes any action.
