Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta says he wouldn’t have filed protest

Houston’s owner says he wouldn’t have filed a protest after the loss in San Antonio, but he deferred to his basketball operations staff.

Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta wishes his team hadn’t filed a protest over a Dec. 3 loss in San Antonio. However, he says he left that decision to his basketball operations staff, led by GM Daryl Morey.

In denying Houston’s attempted protest, the NBA said it agreed with the Rockets that rules were misapplied, noting that it had disciplined the officials involved. However, Commissioner Adam Silver suggested there was too much time left when the errors occurred to justify a replay.

In an interview this week with Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, Fertitta said:

I don’t think we should have filed the protest, because honestly, we blew the 22-point lead. But if something is important to my players and basketball ops people, I give them a lot of leeway.

Many analysts around the league were critical of Houston’s decision to file a protest, with some calling it the act of a “sore loser.”  Fertitta may not have liked seeing his franchise receive that type of publicity.

That said, the Rockets aren’t alone in challenging game results in the 2019-20 regular season, since the Dallas Mavericks recently filed their own protest after a controversial loss last weekend in Atlanta.

As of Wednesday morning, the league office had yet to issue a final ruling regarding the Dallas protest.

As for the Dec. 3 game, Houston’s goal was for it to be replayed from the moment of James Harden‘s uncounted dunk with 7:50 left, with the Rockets up by the 15-point margin that the dunk would have provided.

The game was tied after regulation, with the Rockets ultimately losing by two points in double overtime. Houston’s argument was that the bizarre mistake was relevant to the final result, and thus worthy of a replay.

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“While agreeing that the referees misapplied the rules, Commissioner Silver determined that the Rockets had sufficient time to overcome the error during the remainder of the fourth quarter and two subsequent overtime periods and thus the extraordinary remedy of granting a game protest was not warranted,” the league said in its December statement.

The statement also clarified that head coach Mike D’Antoni was incorrectly denied the right to challenge the play.

The nature of the discipline given to the officials involved — led by crew chief James Capers — was not disclosed.

The Rockets enacted some revenge later that month by rallying from 25 points down to defeat the Spurs in Houston. That Dec. 16 game remains the best regular-season comeback (by margin) in franchise history.

The Rockets and Spurs have another home-and-home series looming on April 8 and April 12, as the regular season nears its conclusion. The latter date will be Houston’s first return visit since the protested game.

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