In a stifled end to the game, with Wizards coming back from -16 to try to snatch the decision, it is a quite astonishing defensive action which has already caused a lot of ink to flow. With less than 6 minutes to play, Bradley Beal passes the leather to Spencer Dinwiddie on the wing, who in turn shifts Kyle Kuzma into the corner.
But the ball is diverted by… David Vanterpool, one of the assistant coaches of the Nets (formerly of Portland in particular). Kyle Kuzma and Spencer Dinwiddie may show their displeasure to Ben Taylor, the referee who was right in front of the action, but it was Kessler Edwards who intercepted and dropped a ball to Patty Mills…
Instead of a technical foul for the intervention of an assistant coach during the course of the game, the Wizards thus only had their eyes to cry, ultimately defeated by the tiniest of margins (119-118).
“Amateur basketball”
“Amateur basketball, that’s what it looked like”thundered Kyle Kuzma. “It’s just an unfortunate situation. There were a few guys on the bench who screwed up the whole game. We have to live with it. “
If the Wizards had several opportunities to win, including through Kyle Kuzma and Spencer Dinwiddie 3-point on the final action, they did not take off after the game. Like Joseph Blair, Washington’s interim coach.
“You ask me if he may have touched the ball. But there is no maybe! He hit the ball. My reaction is complete disbelief. I’ve never seen something like this happen in my long basketball career, something no referee has seen. “
For their part, the officials explained that this “diverted ball” had not been noted in real time, by any of the three referees, thus preventing any possibility of a “review”: “No, there was no mechanism in place for that”soberly justified Ben Taylor, who was nevertheless a few centimeters from the action…
