Referee admits crucial mistake in Cavs loss to Kings

The refereeing crew admit that they should’ve reviewed what should’ve been a shot-clock violation on the Kings.

The Cleveland Cavaliers deserved to lose to the Sacramento Kings on Sunday. They didn’t make enough shots and the effort wasn’t where it needed to be.

That said, they were on the wrong side of a few questionable and outright wrong calls. This includes the missed shot clock violation and what was ruled a made layup by Zach LaVine.

The replay clearly shows that LaVine didn’t get the shot off before the buzzer.

The still frame below illustrates this as well. The red light is on when the ball is still in LaVine’s hands.

The issue with what happened is twofold. First, this was obviously a shot clock violation. The second is that it should’ve been reviewed. The latter is what crew chief Courtney Kirkland admitted afterward in The Pool Report interview conducted by Ethan Sands of cleveland.com.

“Well, we made a mistake,” Kirkland said. “During live action we thought that LaVine released the ball prior to the expiration of the shot clock. If we were going to review, we would have had to review it before the ball was legally touched on the floor during the throw in, right after the made basket.”

This missed call caused Sacramento to be up 118-111 with 47 seconds left. The Cavs scored on their next possession to make it 118-113. Then, two missed free throws from Trey Lyles gave the Cavs the ball back with 24 seconds left down five.

There’s no guarantee things would’ve turned out the same way if that basket didn’t count. But if it did, the Cavs would’ve had a chance to tie the game late.

The Cavaliers deserved this loss. But it’s always frustrating when that outcome is influenced by things outside of their control, specifically crucial missed calls that went against them. Then again, that’s part of sports.