NBA Makes Final Determination on Shock No-Call in Warriors Loss

If one had made the decision to switch the Golden State Warriors‘ Wednesday bout with the Utah Jazz off after, oh… 47 and a half minutes or so of play, they’d have ended the night feeling pretty darn good about their team.

Jordan Poole had another 36-point night, Donte DiVincenzo nearly logged a triple-double, Jonathan Kuminga played what might have been the game of his life and the Dubs battled back from a double-digit deficit sans 3/5 of their starting five to snag a two-possession advantage with mere seconds left to play.

At that point, however, chaos ensued and, with just under six seconds left, Nickeil Alexander-Walker dislodged the ball from Poole’s grasp, leading to a breakaway dunk for Simone Fontecchio and 124-123 loss for the Warriors.

The play wasn’t without controversy, as Poole and Jazz center Kelly Olynyk collided while battling for the ball and no whistle was blown on the play. Dub Nation was understandably up in arms over the non-call — which essentially sealed Golden State’s fate — but, as the NBA sees it, the officials didn’t do anything wrong.

L2M Report Confirms Key On-Court Rulings

The league released its last-two-minute report for the Warriors-Jazz affair on Thursday afternoon. And, for Warriors fans hoping to get an admission of wrongdoing by officials or a level of validation for their outrage, there was very little to get behind.

Regarding the deflection itself, it was deemed that the non-call was the correct response to what transpired. “Alexander-Walker (UTA) cleanly dislodges the ball from Poole (GSW). Any ensuing hand/arm contact is considered incidental,” read the notes in the report.

It was further noted that the Olynyk-Poole collision yielded a correct non-call, too. Read the report: “After the ball becomes loose, Poole (GSW) and Olynyk (UTA) come together in pursuit of the loose ball and marginal contact occurs.”

Now, should there have been a foul called on Olynyk? Probably, but the league has been handling loose-ball scrambles in this fashion for some time now.

Per the report, the only actual missed calls were a travel on Kelly Olynyk at the 1:50 mark and a moving screen on Jonathan Kuminga at 1:21. Clearly, though, the Warriors faithful viewed the play through a different lens.

“Ummm…Jordan Poole was absolutely hacked,” read one tweet.

“Yo when will They start issuing Fines To These Refs!!!!!…..That was 2 blatant no Calls Cmon Man!!!!….How??????” wondered another fan.

“Hacked and then tackled — wild no one is saying anything other than trashing warriors and the kid.. Kelly Olynyk gets 2 points for a wrestling take down wtf,” read a third tweet.

Kerr Bemoans Late-Game Effort

Any potentially dubious calls notwithstanding, Warriors coach Steve Kerr led off his postgame media availability by taking his team to task for not seeing things through to the absolute end.

“We didn’t take care of the ball, we turned it over and they took the game. And it’s a shame because our guys did a lot of great stuff. I thought to that point they really fought and earned the right to win the game and then we didn’t close it and you gotta close it,” he said.

“You gotta be rock solid with the ball. You gotta be smart defensively and we were neither of those things the last 13 seconds.”