The Portland Trail Blazers fell 111-109 to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night in a game that featured a wild and controversial ending.
Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was given two technical fouls and ejected with his team leading by one point and 15.6 seconds left in the game after he attempted to call timeout twice as guard Malcolm Brogdon was hounded in the frontcourt.
One problem – the officials never gave him the timeout. Brogdon ended up committing a turnover, Billups got tossed, and the Blazers walked away with a loss.
Lead referee Bill Kennedy answered questions on the controversial ending in the pool report for Tuesday’s game, according to Brandon Rahbar of Daily Thunder:
Obviously, a coach isn’t supposed to make contact with an official, but Billups clearly asked for a Blazers timeout twice in the video. Kennedy’s reasoning is that the coach is difficult to hear or see with the coach behind him. It’s not clear if Kennedy expected Billups to cross halfcourt into the Thunder sideline area to get the timeout.
The Blazers aren’t buying the explanation. Portland is officially filing a protest to contest the outcome of their loss against the Thunder.
“We’ve got timeouts,” Billups said afterward. “Referees usually are prepared for that, you know, that instance, that situation. I’m at half court, trying to call a timeout. It’s just frustrating. My guys played too hard for that. It’s a frustrating play.”
An NBA team has 48 hours to file a protest with the league office, and five days to provide evidence of the protested action. After that, the league office has five more days to make a decision. A protest costs a team $10,000 to file and is refunded if successful.
The NBA has not often upheld protests in league history — only six times, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. The last time came on Dec. 19, 2007, when Miami Heat center Shaquille O’Neal was incorrectly ruled to have six fouls when he had only five.
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