“The worst refereeing mistake in history.” The Warriors scored as the opposition waited at the other ring, and Dallas boiled over

A very strange moment.

Have you ever seen this?

This is not a practice, not high school or even college basketball, this is a decisive stage of the NBA regular season between teams that are fighting for a ticket to the playoffs.Five “Golden State Warriors” introduces the ball from out – and the hospitable owners of the parquet from “Dallas” do not prevent them from scoring free two points.They are not even present in their own half of the site at this event.

What happened before this moment? And most importantly: what happens after?

Let’s figure it out.

Middle of the third quarter, unsuccessful attack by Golden State, center Kevon Looney rebounds, but the ball goes out. 

The referee gestures to one side. Then to another.

On replays from other angles, it is obvious that the last ball touches the Mavericks player –possession remains with the FGP, the first gesture of the judge is about this(attack towards the Dallas basket).

Second?A signal that Dallas is taking a timeout.Kevon Looney is surprised – but the referee explains to him the meaning of the gesture. The center instantly calms down.

But the situation became clear not to everyone. Even after the timeout, Jordan Poole, surprised that no one was defending, asked the referee: “Our ball? Yes? Then come on, come on, come on, ”and hurried to bring him into the game, while Dallas was unclear what he was doing on the other half.

The head of the refereeing team, Sean Wright, in a conversation with reporters after the game, explained the gestures in exactly the same way: “Initially, there was a signal indicating that the Golden State had the ball, this can be seen on the video. There is a second signal, but it means a mandatory time-out awarded to Dallas.

(in each quarter of the NBA there must be at least two timeouts, if in the first 5 minutes none of the teams takes, then in the first pause, when the ball is out of play, the game stops with a timeout, the referee table awards it to the home team; if in the first 9 minutes only one was taken – the same situation, only the timeout is deducted from the reserve of the team that did not take it in the quarter. Dallas did not plan to use a timeout, but was obliged by the rules)

True, the explanation was belated: many needed it at the moment. First of all, the players and coaches of Dallas, who thought that they had the ball and they could take their time to return from the bench (only this can explain why none of the Maves were in their half at all, from where in any case the ball would be injected – either side). And even the third judge from the brigade (Michael Smith) mixed up the positions, standing under the Warriors’ basket, as if attacking in this ring, and not at the center line.