Nuggets coach Michael Malone just wants everyone to slow down and take another look. (AP) The Denver Nuggets on Thursday filed an official protest with the NBA over their one-point loss to the Memphis Grizzlies earlier this week, in response to the league acknowledging in its Last Two Minutes post-mortem report that both the referees on-site and the replay officials at the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, N.J., made an incorrect call that played a major role in the unfolding of the game’s final play.
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The play in question began when the Nuggets had the ball and a one-point lead with 4.7 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter on Tuesday night:

Denver’s Mike Miller attempted to inbound the ball to teammate Nikola Jokic, but his pass was too high, going off Jokic’s fingertips and eventually getting corralled by Mike Conley. The Grizzlies point guard dribbled into the frontcourt, looking for a transition layup that would give his team the lead, but he lost the ball out of bounds under the basket with less than one second remaining.
The refs called the ball out on Denver on the floor, believing Nuggets point guard Emmanuel Mudiay had touched the ball after Conley lost it. The decision then went to Secaucus, where replay officials reviewed the angles and evidence available to them and confirmed the call, giving Memphis back the ball on the baseline under the basket, down by one, with 0.7 seconds remaining.
And then:

That thrilling inbounds lob hook-up between passer Vince Carter and finisher Marc Gasol gave Memphis the win, and left the Nuggets — especially Mudiay, who insisted he never touched the ball after Conley lost it — feeling jobbed. The league validated that feeling when it released the Last Two Minutes report breakdown of Nuggets-Grizzlies on Wednesday:
Angles reviewed in the Replay Center appeared to show Mudiay (DEN) touch the ball prior to it going out of bounds. The call on the floor was therefore confirmed as MEM possession. However, upon review of an additional angle postgame, it was determined that Mudiay did not touch the ball and possession should have been awarded to DEN.
Which is to say: upon further review, the Grizzlies shouldn’t have had the ball with 0.7 seconds left and a chance to go for the win, but they did. The Nuggets should have had the chance to winnow off one last fraction of a second to head home with a win, but they didn’t.
There were other missed calls listed in the L2M report that benefited the Nuggets — namely, two separate uncalled violations on Mudiay and Gary Harris on a play several seconds earlier that Denver turned into two points to take the lead — but this one specifically impacted the circumstances that resulted in a game-winning (and game-losing) play. Getting the after-the-fact mea culpa from the league only angered the Nuggets further, and made them consider taking action, as head coach Michael Malone said during the team’s shootaround prior to Thursday night’s meeting with the Golden State Warriors.
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From Evan Fiala of Denver Stiffs:
“The replay center failed us. We lost a game, and granted, 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 whose 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 to score, that’s a very tough pill to swallow.
“Obviously we’re looking at every and any way to see what our options are moving forward, to see if there’s any way to change the outcome of the game, to replay the final 0.7 seconds of the game, whatever it may be. Certain calls are not reviewable … but out of bounds and possession is one of the things they spend a lot of time on at our head coaches meetings and GMs meetings, talking about how effective and great the replay center is. Well, it wasn’t that great the other night, and 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.”
After considering their options, the Nuggets decided Thursday evening to lodge a formal protest with the league. From a statement by team president Josh Kroenke:
Last night, Coach Malone notified [Nuggets general manager] Tim Connolly and myself that the NBA officiating report acknowledged an incorrect call in our November 8th contest against the Memphis Grizzlies with 0.7 seconds remaining in the game and the Nuggets ahead 107-106. The ruling on the floor and subsequent video review resulted in Memphis incorrectly being awarded possession and scoring a game-winning basket on the final play.
There are numerous plays over the course of a game that impact the eventual outcome, including some incorrect foul call and judgment calls that affect each team throughout. Officiating a professional game in any sport is an incredibly difficult and highly scrutinized job, and we feel the NBA undoubtedly has the best basketball officials in the world.
Commissioner [Adam] Silver has done a fantastic job championing league transparency and accuracy for teams and fans alike with the addition of in-game video review and the NBA’s Instant Replay Center. However, in this case, a reviewable non-judgment call regarding possession was not sufficiently reviewed, and considering the time and score, we feel as if the incorrect ruling had a direct impact on the final outcome of the game.
Here’s how the league’s constitution, which the NBA made public a couple of years back as part of Silver’s push toward increased transparency, lays out the protest process:
(a) In order for a Member to protest against or appeal from the result of a game, notice thereof must be given to the Commissioner within forty-eight (48) hours after the conclusion of said game, by a Writing, stating therein the grounds for such protest. No protest may be filed in connection with any game played during the Regular Season after midnight of the day of the last game of the Regular Season. A protest in connection with a Playoff Game must be filed not later than midnight of the day of the game protested. A game may be protested only by a Governor, Alternate Governor, General Manager, or Head Coach. The right of protest shall inure not only to the allegedly aggrieved contestants, but to any other Member who can show an interest in the grounds of protest and the results that might be attained if the protest were allowed. No protest shall be valid unless the Written Notice to the Commissioner thereof is accompanied by a check in the sum of $10,000 (the “Protest Fee”) payable to the order of the Association. If the Member filing the protest prevails, the Protest Fee is to be refunded. If the Member does not prevail, the Protest Fee is to be forfeited and retained in the Association treasury.
(b) Upon receipt of a protest, the Commissioner shall at once notify the Member operating the opposing Team in the game protested and require both of said Members within five (5) days to file with him such evidence as he may desire bearing upon the issue. The Commissioner shall decide the question raised within five (5) days after receipt of such evidence.
If the Nuggets’ protest is upheld, it’d mark the first time that the league has granted a game protest since January 2008, when the Miami Heat raised a red flag over a critical error late in a game against the Atlanta Hawks:
The Heat protested the game because, with 51.9 seconds remaining in overtime, the Hawks’ scoring table personnel incorrectly disqualified the Heat’s Shaquille O’Neal – asserting that a foul committed by O’Neal was his sixth foul of the game, when in fact it was only his fifth. The error occurred because the Hawks’ Official Scorer mistakenly attributed to O’Neal a foul at 3:24 remaining in the fourth period that was actually called against the Heat’s Udonis Haslem.
NBA Commissioner David Stern found that the Hawks were grossly negligent in committing this scoring error, since they failed to follow league-mandated scoring procedures and failed to respond effectively when the members of the statisticians’ crew noticed the mistake. Because of this conduct by Atlanta’s personnel, Miami suffered a clear competitive disadvantage, as O’Neal – the Heat’s second leading scorer and rebounder that night – was removed from a one-point game with only 51.9 seconds remaining. Under this unprecedented set of circumstances, the Commissioner granted the Heat’s protest, and fined the Hawks $50,000 for their violation of league rules.
In that case, the league ruled that the Heat and Hawks would replay the final 51.9 seconds of overtime before their next meeting, which came on March 8, 2008 … after Shaq had been traded to the Phoenix Suns for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. The Hawks held on for a 114-111 win.
Two years ago, the Sacramento Kings filed a protest with the NBA stemming from — as luck would have it — a buzzer-beater loss to these same Grizzlies. The Kings claimed that Courtney Lee’s game-winning shot shouldn’t have counted, because it came after time expired because A) his layup took 0.377 seconds to complete, and there was only 0.3 left on the clock at the time of the inbounds and B) Kings center Ryan Hollins made contact with the inbounds pass, meaning the game clock should have started well before the ball ever reached Lee’s hands. That protest was denied when Silver determined that the officials’ ruling that Lee’s shot came in time fell within the bounds of their judgment.

This time, though, the league has already admitted both an error on the part of the on-site officials and an insufficient remedy from the replay center. Whether that’s enough to roll back the odometer on Tuesday’s result, get the two clubs back on the court for an extra 0.7 seconds before their next scheduled meeting on Feb. 1, and maybe shift one win and one loss from each team’s ledger remains to be seen.
“Whether they do it or not, I have no idea,” Malone said Thursday, according to Nick Kosmider of the Denver Post.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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