After a bizarre inbound sequence during the Maverick’s heartbreaking loss against the Warriors on Wednesday night. Mark Cuban has announced that the team is filing a formal protest to the NBA. It happened during the third quarter when there appeared to be some sort of confusion on who had possession of the ball. The Mavs believed to award the ball on a Golden State turnover. Mavs players were set up on the other side of the court. But instead, the refs decided to give the ball to the Warriors. By the time they inbounded, the basket was left unguarded, leading to an easy bucket by Kevon Looney. This was different as the Mavericks lost by just two points with the final score of 127-125.

For one of the stranger events in NBA history. The lack of communication between the referees and Mavs players/coaches was the main catalyst on why this happened. Cuban took to Twitter to voice his frustration.

After the game, Mavs head coach Jason Kidd explained his thought process of the play from his point of view during the post-game presser.

“If there’s confusion, it’s easy to just come in and blow the whistle and get us restarted,” Kidd said. “Because it was confusion. Understanding that we thought it was our ball, the referee pointed towards our bench. That was the signal of the timeout, but there was confusion on the play before it even started with whose ball it was because he pointed, I thought, to us first. Then he changed it and then went to a timeout, and pointed to us.”

Another angle of the Warriors broadcast showed the inbounder Jordan Poole saw something was off and immediately started calling for the ball. He then quickly passed to Looney, which led to the free points. Poole made this smart decision, considering no one else noticed and took advantage of it.

The official’s crew released a pool report double downed on the call by saying, “Initially on the floor the original signal was in fact Golden State ball as this can be seen on video. There is a second signal but that signal is for a mandatory timeout that was due to the Mavericks.”

It’s unclear which side is more at fault, the Mavs not understanding the situation. Or are the officials not making the right call? One thing is clear the NBA has a referee problem, and has gotten and going to get worse from here on out. It seems like every month; we get one bad foul call that changes the outcome of games. With the playoffs approaching, the NBA can have these issues. The most frustrating part is the refs go unscathed when players get fined for wearing certain clothing. It’s time to start disciplining the officials by having suspensions or terminations similar to what players and coaches do. Enough is enough.

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