Cuban Whistle Crisis: Day 2

Mar 23, 2023 - 10:50 PM

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Wednesday evening the Dallas Mavericks fell to the Golden State Warriors, 127-125. During the game there was a baffling series of events which led to the Warriors getting two easy points.

During the broadcast, ESPN commentator Jeff Van Gundy noted that Dallas owner Mark Cuban came over to the broadcast crew to inform them that the Mavericks would file a protest if they lost the game by two points or less. He explains what happened in more detail on the latest episode of the Lowe Post.

While Ben gets into it a great deal in the post above, it’s worth re-examining what we saw and what we learned about the situation later. There seems to be a great deal of confusion both at the time of the call and after as to why more wasn’t communicated to the Mavericks during the timeout.

Former Mavericks Director of Player Development, current Bally’s analyst, and current writer at D-Magazine Brian Dameris has a good explainer here (you have to click to his Instagram reel).

Mark Cuban spent sometime engaging on Twitter today, still clearly frustrated the next day by the call which ended up mattering a great deal in the final box score.

Given that the Mavericks and Warriors played 14 more minutes after this call, it seems impossible that the NBA would rule in the Mavericks’ favor. A ruling in agreement with the Mavericks would mean the NBA would have both teams replaying those final 14 minutes.

We here take the editorial position that the Mavericks, perhaps, should have rebounded the basketball and played better defense, but a call like this which was such an obvious mistake is understandably frustrating. The NBA refereeing this season has not been good and it’s become a bigger story as the season rolls on.

Also, I’m not going to miss a chance to headline an article “Cuban Whistle Crisis”, it’s just too good a joke. Hat to Twitter user @TheMSeries1 for the incredible name for the evolving fiasco.