Every day it's needed, the NBA releases a review of the officiating for the final two minutes of play in games that are close (within five points). It's an attempt at transparency by the league but it's usually not worth spending much time on for most games since it's not worth analyzing calls in games that are over after the fact. Officials do their best but they make mistakes every game like we all would in their possession.
However, the conclusion of Thursday's Bucks-Celtics game looked a little different than usual when Friday's report surfaced, largely due to the sheer volume of errors. All in all, five mistakes were made by officials in the closing eight seconds of the game. Let's take a look at a few of the miscues and the domino effect they all had.
Missed call 1: Giannis travels with eight seconds remaining: The Greek Freak should have been whistled for two travels in the final 68 seconds, but this was a fairly big one. Prior to Marcus Smart tying him up for a jump ball, Antetokounmpo lifted his pivot foot according to the video review. This would have given the ball to Boston with 8.1 seconds remaining. Instead, a jump ball was whistled with 3.7 seconds remaining.
Missed call 2: Officials call 24-second violation after a legal tip by the Bucks following jump ball: It was a perfectly executed sequence by Milwaukee. Giannis Antetokounmpo tipped the jump ball to Brook Lopez towards the basket and the big man than tipped it towards the rim. Since the shot clock does not start until after the ball is tipped to a player on a jump ball, this all could have legally happened, according to the review. However, the officials on the floor Thursday night ruled Lopez had possession of the ball before the tip and did not have time to attempt a shot (0.3 seconds), so they called a shot-clock violation on the Bucks. This was obviously a judgment call and did go the Bucks' way. Malcolm Brogdon missed the putback, but if this was called correctly on the floor, it's likely the Celtics would not have had a chance to score as more time ran off the clock on the Lopez miss.
The final 3.7 seconds of the L2M report for Celtics-Bucks is ... not good. pic.twitter.com/hdXMkIjlY0
— Chris Mannix (@SIChrisMannix) February 22, 2019
I can see why Marcus Morris was a little upset pic.twitter.com/MiSt1lWiFI
— Dan Greenberg (@StoolGreenie) February 22, 2019