The Warriors and Lakers, who are engaged in a tense battle for position in the Western Conference play-in tournament race, appeared headed for a dramatic ending when James drilled a three-pointer over Curry with 2 :07 to play. The shot, which came as James faded to his left, cut Golden State’s lead to 124-120.
The play continued the other way until the ball went out of bounds on a bounce on Golden State’s next possession. The referees were unable to determine which player had kicked the ball last, so they initiated a video review.
To the surprise of both teams, James’ three-pointer was retroactively taken away during the lengthy review. An official based at the NBA’s remote video center in Secaucus, New Jersey, determined that James was out of bounds on his shot attempt because his left heel was touching the sideline. The move restored the Warriors’ lead to 124-117.
Added additional complications and delays: The referees determined, in a rare occurrence, that a Warriors player and a Lakers player simultaneously deflected the ball out of bounds on the next play, thus requiring a jump ball to restart the action.
Once the jump ball was initiated, Warriors forward Draymond Green appeared to step on the baseline as he tried to regain possession. The referees initially missed Green going out of bounds, forcing the Lakers to contest the play to gain possession. After another careful review, the referees deemed the Lakers’ challenge successful and awarded them the ball.
Unfortunately, the comedy of errors was only just beginning. When the Lakers attempted to inbound the ball, the game clock started but the shot clock did not. Noticing the problem, the referees stopped the game and gathered at the scorer’s table to resolve the problem.
No fixes have been offered. Instead, the same scene repeated three more times: the Lakers inbounded the ball, the shot clock didn’t start properly, and the game had to be whistled for dead.
Lakers public address announcer Lawrence Tanter finally informed the exasperated crowd that he would verbally announce the shot clock over the sound system so the game could continue.
In total, from the start of the first video review to the end of the final shot clock malfunction, it took 18 minutes 42 seconds to play 15 seconds of game action.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in over 30 years in the NBA.”
-Mike Breen
The shot clock in Los Angeles is no longer working.
After a LONG delay, it was determined that the clock would be kept via a stopwatch, with AP man Lawrence Tanter counting the time. pic.twitter.com/XNULtX2ciG
– Awful Announcement (@awfulannouncing) March 17, 2024
During the interminable stoppage, James threw the ball down the field in frustration, then threw it at the ceiling in dismay. Curry showed off flashy dribbling skills and walked around shaking his head. Klay Thompson checked his wristband like it was a watch, and players from both teams did running drills to stay warm. Meanwhile, the ABC broadcast cut several commercial breaks and showed celebrities such as actor Ben Affleck and rapper Bad Bunny unable to contain their boredom while sitting in their courtside seats.
“I’m too old for this,” James said, within earshot of the ABC television crew.
Rather than a tense late-game battle between James, who scored a game-high 40 points, and Curry, who finished with a team-high 31 points, the rest of the contest was an afterthought. The Warriors maintained their comfortable cushion, the final minute passed without any major developments, and both teams retreated to their respective locker rooms, where they attempted to make sense of what had just happened.
“It was weird,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “It seems like several times a year you have clock problems. This is about as extreme as I’ve ever experienced. It’s regrettable. I felt bad for the fans. It was a great match, and all of a sudden, in the last two minutes, everyone is looking at each other wondering what to do.
James said he never had a basket taken away on retroactive review and that the call “took some momentum away” from the Lakers as it restored the Warriors’ seven-point lead. The four-time MVP added that he thought the review ruling was incorrect because a reading angle appeared to show his left heel may not have been in contact with the ground during his shooting motion.
“I obviously didn’t think I crossed the finish line,” James said. “I knew how much space I had there. When I photograph, I photograph on tiptoe. It’s a little difficult for me to have one heel on the ground.
Although the Warriors were the beneficiaries of James’ erased three-point shooting, Kerr said he didn’t like the retroactive review process and would “love to see that rule go away.”
“I think we try so hard to make everything perfect at the expense of [game’s] flow,” Kerr said. “Who cares if a guy’s foot is half an inch off the line? Is it worth going back 45 seconds and changing everything with the unexpected consequences? …I’m not a fan of the replay. I think we should have replayed just for the buzzers, and that’s it.
Curry was baffled by the machinations of the off-site review process, which involves game officials huddling around a monitor and putting on a headset at the scorer’s table so they can communicate directly with an off-site official in Secaucas .
“I always wanted to know the conversation when they put the headphones on,” Curry said. “Who are they talking to and what are the exchanges like? … [The three reviews] These were all pieces where you have to zoom all the way in and the technology gets the best of you, while you’re still trying to get it back to the frame where you can definitely see it. It was weird that these three games were all back-to-back.
As for the shot clock malfunctions, Curry and Thompson both said they wish the referees had decided more quickly than Tanter calling the time.
“I don’t know why we had this hope after the second [attempt]”, Curry said. “Every time we put the ball down and thought we were good, they take two dribbles and the whistles come back. I’ve never seen anything like that in 15 years.
By the end of the night, Curry’s riveting three-pointers and James’ valiant attempt to carry the Lakers without Anthony Davis, who left in the first half with an eye injury, were long forgotten. Thompson’s 26 points off the bench and Draymond Green’s near-triple-double were overshadowed by an aggravating replay process that swallowed the game and a two-bit shot clock fiasco, which should be inexcusable in a tech-obsessed league that generated more than $10 billion in revenue last season.
The Warriors (35-31) barely celebrated a crucial win, which put them a half-game above the Lakers (36-32) as the Pacific Division rivals continue to battle for the final two Western play-in places. Like everyone else in the building, they just wanted to be free from the excruciating purgatory.
“It was crazy,” Green said. “Do something. Complete the game already. It was crazy.
