With all eyes on two of its legends in LeBron James and Steph Curry, the NBA revealed just how out of control things have gotten with replay reviews.
This Lakers season has been a frustrating one for fans. For reasons largely out of the team’s control, the Lakers have never found a groove this year with players swapping in and out of the rotation.
In many ways, those frustrations hit a boiling point on Saturday. In a game against the Warriors that the Lakers were treating as a playoff contest, Anthony Davis suffered an eye injury in the first quarter.
Down one of their superstars, the Lakers clawed to stay close throughout when LeBron looked to be catching fire in the fourth quarter. And then, all hell broke loose and not in a way either team could control.
A LeBron 3-pointer that cut the lead to 124-120 with just over two minutes left preceded an out-of-bounds review that opened Pandora’s box. Given the time to look at LeBron’s 3-pointer, the league ruled he had stepped out of bounds and took away the basket.
However, what they couldn’t review was a Warriors possession earlier in the quarter in which the shot clock malfunctioned and gave the Warriors nearly 30 seconds to score. If only that was the only shot clock issue.
Beginning with that out-of-bounds review, ground to a halt that is hard to fully contextualize. Two replay reviews preceded what was, without question, the most absurd stretch of starts and stops that took all the life out of the game.
By the time the game restarted, no one was in rhythm. LeBron, who had scored 11 points in the fourth, not including his wiped-away 3-pointer, was ice cold. And the Lakers, who were already looking for an improbable win, had their opportunity ripped away.
“I’ve never seen that be called before like that in that particular time,” LeBron said. “That was kind of weird. It took some momentum away from us.”
Even the Warriors were flabbergasted by how things played out, including wiping away LeBron’s 3-pointer.
In the league’s aim to get everything right, they’ve swayed too far in the wrong direction. Replay review has been a growing issue within the league. The length of them has grown without any measures put in place to stop them.
The result is what played out on Saturday. The shot clock issues are one of the most absurd things to happen in a game and there’s nothing to do about that.
But preceding that catastrophe was a pair of reviews that contributed to the ridiculously long wait. First, a review of an out-of-bounds call resulted in a lengthy deliberation before they decided to…have a jump ball?
And on that jump ball, Draymond Green clearly travels trying to save the ball from going out of bounds. The Lakers challenged that one and, again, a long review in which it was clear Green traveled ensued. Because of the silly nature of reviews, everyone could see Green travel and just had to ignore it because that couldn’t be reviewed officially.
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