Rockets protest loss at San Antonio for misapplication of rules

The Houston Rockets on Thursday night officially filed their protest with the NBA regarding the team’s Dec. 3 loss at San Antonio.

The Houston Rockets on Thursday night officially filed their protest with the NBA regarding the team’s Dec. 3 loss at San Antonio.

The timing of the move was expected, since teams must file any protests within 48 hours of the conclusion of the game in question.

Houston’s goal is for Tuesday’s game to be replayed from the moment of James Harden‘s uncounted dunk with 7:50 left in regulation, with the Rockets up by the 15-point margin that the dunk would have given them.

The game was tied at the end of the fourth quarter, so those two points were certainly impactful to the game’s result.

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According to Houston Chronicle beat writer Jonathan Feigen, the Rockets’ argument will cite a “misapplication of rules” — with regards to points not being awarded following a made basket, as well as the the on-court officials failing to grant a coaches’ challenge to Mike D’Antoni.

Officiating crew chief James Capers said postgame that the call of basket interference was reviewable, but that the Rockets did not challenge it within the allowed 30-second window. D’Antoni, however, says the officials were unclear in their explanations to him on what the call actually was — and thus, he didn’t immediately know what to challenge.

According to ESPN‘s Tim MacMahon, the Rockets noted in their protest Thursday that a basket interference call was not made — which could undermine the validity of Capers’ postgame explanation regarding both the call and why a challenge was not granted.

MacMahon writes:

The Rockets, according to sources, note in their protest that a basket interference call was not made, contrary to Capers’ postgame explanation. Houston, sources said, provided five points of supporting evidence: a basket interference signal was never given, the clock continued to run, the Spurs inbounded from the spot where the ball went out of bounds, referee Kevin Scott told the Rockets at the time and later in the game that it was a missed basket, and the official scorer scored it as a missed basket after initially awarding Houston two points.

The last NBA protest to be upheld occurred in 2008, when the Heat successfully protested a game in Atlanta where the official scorer ruled incorrectly that Shaquille O’Neal had fouled out.

With the protest officially in, both the Rockets and Spurs now have five days to provide relevant evidence. Commissioner Adam Silver then has five days after receiving that evidence to make his ruling, which would make for a likely resolution somewhere around Dec. 15.

Two years ago, the Rockets protested a December 2017 game against the Clippers but ultimately withdrew it before Silver’s ruling, with reports suggesting that Houston became skeptical it would be upheld.

The December 2017 protest was largely based on a judgment call, with the officials incorrectly assessing a called foul on Los Angeles guard Lou Williams rather than Jawun Evans, who would have fouled out. However, because the mistake was made by on-court officials rather than the official scorer (the basis of Miami’s successful 2008 protest), the NBA appeared reluctant to overturn an official’s snap judgment.

For the Rockets to win their current protest over Harden’s dunk, they will likely need to show that the officiating mistakes leading to it resulted from an improper process — rather than simply an incorrect judgment.

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