Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was irate after his team’s loss to the Hawks on Saturday.
He’s putting his money where his Twitter fingers are.
Dallas is protesting the game, according to the Last Two Minute Report. That requires posting a $10,000 fee to be refunded only if the challenge prevails.
The contentious play occurred in the final 10 seconds. Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith was called for goaltending Trae Young’s shot. The play was reviewed and ruled a clean block. However, officials determined the whistle was therefore inadvertent and blew while John Collins was in his shooting motion on a successful putback attempt. So, Collins’ basket counted.
The Mavericks are claiming officials misapplied the rules – a key distinction for a protest. A simple missed call won’t get it done.
Protests rarely succeed. This one probably won’t.
But I think Dallas has a chance. The whistle wasn’t inadvertent. It was intentional. It was for a wrong call. But it was intentional.
Even if the challenge is successful and the Mavericks get their desired jump ball in a re-do, they’d still be trailing by two in the final seconds. They’d still be underdogs.
On the other hand, odds still strongly favor Cuban getting fined… eventually.
Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon of ESPN:
