WATCH | Referee defends Lakers' controversial timeout vs Suns during in-season tournament quarters
Still from the game before the timeout
The officials have defended the controversial timeout given to Los Angeles Lakers against the Phoenix Suns in the NBA in-season tournament quarterfinals of the Western Conference. The Lakers eventually beat the Suns 106-103 to move to the next round where they'll meet the Milwaukee Bucks for a place in the in-season tournament final.
The incident happened in the fourth quarter with 11.2 seconds left in the game and the scores being at 105-103 in favour of the Lakers. Suns' Kevin Durant had just scored a layup for for his team to cut the deficit to two points. The Lakers now had to inbound the ball under their own basket and LeBron James took charge.
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James passed the ball to Austin Reaves who immediately got surrounded by the Suns defenders. Reeves seemed to have lost the control over the ball but immediately a whistle blew to give the Lakers a timeout. Have a look at the video below:
Talking about the timeout, crew chief Josh Tiven, after the game, told pool reporter Jovan Buha of The Athletic: “During live play the official felt that LA still had possession of the ball when LeBron James requested the timeout. Through postgame video review in slow motion replay, we did see that Austin Reaves had his left hand on the ball while it’s pinned against his left leg, which does constitute control.”
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After the timeout, the Suns fouled the Lakers and Anthony Davis got to shoot the free throws. Davis scored one point on FTs and the Lakers score hit 106. Kevin Durant then failed to score the game-tying three pointer in the dying moments as the Suns bowed out ofthe tournament.
The Suns were pretty much trailing the Lakers in each quarter except the third one where they outscored Los Angeles 35-25. Phoenix was still in one-point deficit despite all that and the final quarter score of 23-21 in the Lakers' favour marked the end of their run in the inaugural in-season tournament.
