There was a controversial ending to the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday night, resulting in a rough loss for head coach Darvin Ham’s team.
The first sign of trouble was early in the fourth quarter when the Warriors got a random shot clock reset in the middle of a possession. They wound up scoring after more than 30 seconds went off the clock and despite Ham and the Lakers bench bringing it to the referees’ attention, there was nothing done about it.
The Lakers then found themselves mounting a late comeback thanks to a red-hot LeBron James. He appeared to hit a corner 3-pointer to bring the Lakers back within four points with around two minutes to play.
After a wrong out of bounds call on the ensuing possession, Ham was forced to use a challenge, which wound up being successful. During that break though, the refs went and looked back at James’ 3, concluding that his foot was out of bounds and that it would not count.
There was around a 15-minute delay from there due to the shot clock continuing to malfunction and by the end of it, the Lakers had lost all momentum and would go on to suffer the loss.
After the game, Ham discussed the situation from his vantage point and how unfortunate it was for his team.
“It’s tough. You try to get the game back going and I think it may have been four times where we thought we were gonna get it going and the shot clock still wasn’t working,” Ham said. “The regular game clock was working but the shot clock was malfunctioning. So it’s hard, guys stiffen up real quick after playing with such high intensity. And it throws of the rhythm of the game. But it’s out of anyone’s control when the computer malfunctions.
“So it is what it is, tip your cap to them, they came in and played a hell of a game. Had a couple different guys step up at different segments of the game and we had some guys that played well and competed throughout. But some looks we normally make, we missed.”
While Ham knows the shot clock situation was out of everyone’s control, he recognized how much it threw off everyone’s rhythm in what was a great game.
“It’s tough… One of the challenges, I think they didn’t realize that LeBron’s heel was on the sideline so we get three points taken away, clock malfunctions while we’re about to get a defensive stop, they end up getting two points when it should’ve been a shot clock violation. It’s just a lot. And then all of the stoppages down the stretch, it’s a lot. It throws off the rhythm of the game and again, it’s out of your control. The clock operator is looking with his palms to the sky like the computer is the computer, so it is what it is.”
The main thing that Ham and the Lakers took issue with was them deciding to take three points off the board after the fact, something he had never seen before. On the other hand, the Warriors’ points due to the shot clock malfunction were not taken off the board.
“They said New York looks at everything. That was the explanation I got,” Ham said. “It is what it is. It’s good to know now how the process goes, but they said it was kind of out of their hands or whatever. Again, their points didn’t get taken away because the clock malfunctioned, they continued to play through. It is what it is.”
The entire fiasco was a bad look for the NBA, but there’s nothing that can be done about it now and unfortunately the Lakers have now dropped to 10th place in the Western Conference with only a handful of games to play.
Referees explain reviews at end of Lakers-Warriors
The referees were interviewed after the game and went on to explain that LeBron James’ 3-pointer is something that is able to be reviewed while the Warriors’ shot clock malfunction is something that they need to notice right away and couldn’t review.
The Lakers came out with the short side of the stick on that one, but there are still plenty of other reasons they lost the game.
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