The Chicago Bulls battled hard in Monday night's game against the Denver Nuggets, but despite their effort the game ended in an emotional 119-118 overtime loss.
As the game got tight, the referee's made two tough calls that may have sealed the Bulls fate and caused a stir of controversy.
"I guess we have to call the league to get an interpretation," an angry coach Tom Thibodeau said.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the dispute centered on two calls in the final 46.4 seconds, both of which went against the Bulls.
First, officials allowed Kosta Koufos' tip-in of Ty Lawson's miss, giving the Nuggets a 116-115 lead. The Bulls screamed for offensive interference, but since no call was made, officials told Thibodeau - correctly - they couldn't use video review.
Then, after Joakim Noah tipped in Nate Robinson's miss to put the Bulls ahead and Andre Iguodala buried a dagger 3-pointer with 7.1 seconds left, the real nuttiness started.
In an amazingly athletic and acrobatic play, Noah tipped home Marco Belinelli's miss with 1.7 seconds left, setting off a wild celebration. But officials used video review to uphold what they called as offensive interference.
In actuality the refs got the call right because the rules state players can't interfere with shots on a downward trajectory if there was a chance the ball would hit the rim.
Thibodeau's beef is that no goaltending call was called in real time, meaning, similarly to Koufos play, no video review should've been allowed.
"Don't understand it one bit," Thibodeau said. "Koufous' play, I asked him why they didn't review it. Clearly, it was on the rim. They told me because they didn't make the call they couldn't review it. I thought we had the video stuff to make sure we got it right. Those are tough calls, bang-bang plays. I understand that. But I don't understand why one is reviewable and the other isn't. After watching the replay, and I watched it when it occurred, none of them made the call on that either."
