SAN ANTONIO — The National Basketball Association has announced it will not overturn the San Antonio Spurs' December 3 win over the Houston Rockets, despite the latter team's formal protest.
The Athletic's Shams Charania broke the news Monday afternoon, tweeting a statement from the league on their reasoning to deny the protest.
The league issued a statement saying that the league's commissioner Adam Silver "determined that the Rockets had sufficient time to overcome the error during the remainder of the fourth quarter and two subsequent overtime periods and thus the extraordinary remedy of granting a game protest was not warranted."
ESPN reporter Tim MacMahon reported following Tuesday's win that the Rockets would ask the league office to step in and change the result of the game. The Spurs went on to win 135-133 in double overtime, but the Rockets say it shouldn’t have gone that far.
A James Harden dunk with 7:50 left in the fourth quarter was not counted after the ball went through the net and back up on the rim. When viewed in live action, it could be seen as a missed shot, but the ball did pass through the rim.
The referee who made the call admitted after the game the call was missed, and the Rockets waited too long to use a coach’s challenge on the incident.
Monday, the league issued disciplines to the three referees who worked the game for "misapplying the coach's challenge."
"If the Coach’s Challenge requested by Houston had been properly granted, instant replay would have shown that Harden’s dunk was a successful field goal," according to the league