At the end of Denver’s 94-92 home loss to the Grizzlies on Monday, Memphis’ Courtney Lee missed a free throw with 0.7 seconds remaining that was rebounded by Kenneth Faried as the fraction of a second ticked away.
But the league, in continuing its efforts to increase transparency with the officiating, released a statement on Tuesday saying that the refs missed a call.
“Upon review at the league office, we have confirmed that a free throw taken by Memphis’ Courtney Lee with 0.7 seconds remaining in the game did not touch the rim,” said Rod Thorn, NBA President, Basketball Operations in the official release. “A violation should have been called with Denver inbounding the ball with 0.7 seconds left on the clock. Since the Nuggets had no timeouts remaining, they would not have been able to advance the ball to the frontcourt.”
The missed free throw attempt and subsequent end to the game can be viewed here.
It would have been a long shot at best for the Nuggets to inbound the ball by throwing a pass the length of the court to get a credible look with under a second remaining, but that’s beside the point -- as the league noted a day later, they should have been given that chance.
