The Los Angeles Lakers hung on to beat the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night to advance to the semifinals of the NBA In-Season Tournament. It was a playoff atmosphere at Crypto.com Arena with the Lakers coming out on top to remain undefeated in the tournament, although it of course did not come without some controversy.
With the Lakers leading by two in the final seconds, the ball was inbounded to Austin Reaves, who was immediately trapped by Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, both of which had five fouls.
Reaves thought he was fouled by Booker and lost the ball, regaining it momentarily before losing it again completely. Seeing that his teammate was in trouble, LeBron James yelled and motioned to the closest referee for a timeout and was granted it. The Lakers would go on to close out the win, and the Suns clearly were not happy with players and coaches expressing their discontent with James being awarded a timeout.
The league put out its daily Last Two-Minute Report on Wednesday and confirmed both that Reaves was not fouled by Booker and LeBron’s timeout was legal.
They did admit to three incorrect calls in the final two minutes, however, all of which disadvantaged the Lakers. The first incorrect call was a Grayson Allen foul on Austin Reaves, and then both James and Anthony Davis were later fouled on the same possession:
And here's the other possession where LeBron was fouled by KD and then AD was fouled by Nurkic. It would have been KD's sixth. pic.twitter.com/2vXZIEfaMv
— Daniel Starkand (@DStarkand) December 6, 2023
If those fouls had been called then the Lakers would have been awarded free throws, which may have helped them close it out quicker than they otherwise did. The foul on James was committed by Durant, who would have fouled out and was the Suns’ leading scorer.
Regardless, the Lakers picked up the win and move on to Las Vegas, where they will take on the New Orleans Pelicans in the semifinals on Thursday night.
James and Reaves give vantage point of timeout
When asked about it after the game, James gave his point of view on the controversial play and how he knew to call for a timeout.
“I was able to hit AR, and I felt Book kind of pushed up on him a little bit kind of made AR stumble,” LeBron said. “And as soon as I saw AR start to stumble a little bit, I started to make the notion and the voice to the referee that was closest to me for a timeout. After that, I heard the commotion, the ball was loose, whatever the case may be, but my direction was right towards the referee to get us a timeout for sure.”
Reaves echoed a similar sentiment on that play and praised James for his IQ.
“I thought D-Book ran into me, and it was late-game, and I don’t know if they were trying to foul or what, but there was no call, and obviously, Bron made a high-IQ play he’s probably done a million times in his career and called timeout,” Reaves recalled. “I don’t really know if it was a foul or not. But we had a timeout and… they didn’t have any timeouts. And KD had to take a long three. He missed, and we won.”
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