The Houston Rockets were “supposed” to win in San Antonio on Tuesday evening and they looked to be on track to do just that, leading the Spurs by a substantial margin in the fourth quarter. With that as the backdrop, a play in the fourth quarter drew all kinds of attention for its bizarre nature and, fittingly, it involved one of the NBA’s most polarizing players in James Harden.
With the Rockets leading by a 13-point margin with less than eight minutes to go, Harden stole a pass at mid-court and began streaking toward the basket for an open dunk. That is when the weirdness began, though, as the former MVP “missed” the dunk in strange fashion.
James Harden with the missed dunk is the best thing I have seen all game. #GoSpursGo pic.twitter.com/mPrXifPZOS
— Joe Garcia (@twoshotspodcast) December 4, 2019
Not only did a ballboy have to run out of the way to provide Harden with the path to the basket, his dunk actually went through the rim and came “out” on the other side, giving the officials the apparent impression that he missed it as it bounced off of the rim.
https://twitter.com/DimeUPROXX/status/1202069486075076608
As noted in the video above, this play was not able to be challenged by the Rockets. After a long discussion, the referees (erroneously) ruled that the basket was no good.
Making things even crazier was the fact that the Rockets were pushed to overtime by the Spurs, with Lonnie Walker scoring eight points in the final 67 seconds of play to tie the score. As a result, the incorrect call made a substantial impact in that Houston’s cushion should have been two points larger than it ended up being.
Of course, it can’t be assumed that everything would’ve played out in identical fashion but, in short, this went from an innocuous mistake by the officials to a game-changing call in short order. Oh, and it was still bizarre under any circumstances.
