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| What happened on the controversial out of bounds call? (USATSI) |
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The controversy at the end of the Oklahoma City Thunder's 105-104 Game 5 win over the Los Angeles Clippers was palpable.
As Reggie Jackson drove the lane in a sudden transition opportunity, Matt Barnes swiped at the ball, made contact with the left hand of Jackson, and the ball popped loose and went out of bounds. The ruling on the floor by the officiating crew of Bennett Salvatore, Tony Brothers and Tom Washington was that the ball was off of Barnes and it would be Thunder ball on the baseline. Since we were in the last two minutes and video review was available, the officials went over to the monitor.
Trying to make sense of Clippers-Thunder out of bounds call
The controversy at the end of the Oklahoma City Thunder's 105-104 Game 5 win over the Los Angeles Clippers was palpable.
As Reggie Jackson drove the lane in a sudden transition opportunity, Matt Barnes swiped at the ball, made contact with the left hand of Jackson, and the ball popped loose and went out of bounds. The ruling on the floor by the officiating crew of Bennett Salvatore, Tony Brothers and Tom Washington was that the ball was off of Barnes and it would be Thunder ball on the baseline. Since we were in the last two minutes and video review was available, the officials went over to the monitor.
Here's the play one more time:
There are some rules and guidelines at play here, but first we should get to why Brothers and his crew decided it should remain Thunder ball. After the game, Brothers released a statement on the controversial ruling that has Clippers fans (and fans of teams who probably don't want to face the Thunder later in the playoffs) so incensed.
When the ball goes out of bounds, the ball was awarded to Oklahoma City. We go review the play. We saw two replays. The two replays we saw were from the overhead camera showing down, and the one from under the basket showing the same angle but from a different view. And from those two replays, it was inconclusive as to who the ball went out of bounds off of. When it's inconclusive, we have to go with the call that was on the floor.Um ... what?
I'm going to watch the replay again. Yep, it's quite conclusive what happened. Jackson had both hands on the ball and Barnes swiped down. Barnes made contact with the left hand, causing the ball to come loose from Jackson's grasp. The ball went out of bounds off of Jackson's right hand, which is causing the controversy here.
Rule 8 Section II - c of the NBA rulebook states:
If a player has his hand in contact with the ball and an opponent hits the hand causing the ball to go out-of-bounds, the team whose player had his hand on the ball will retain possession.There are two ways this is being interpreted on social media right now. One side of the argument is saying that since Jackson had both hands on the ball, Barnes slapping one of the hands and the ball going out of bounds is within the rule for the Thunder retaining possession of the ball. It doesn't matter which hand is being hit because both were in contact with the ball, regardless of him being in the process of transferring the ball strictly to his right hand.
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