The Kings pulled off their second thrilling victory over the Utah Jazz in five days Tuesday night at Vivint Arena, but this time, there was some late-game controversy.
Sacramento ended up with a 117-115 win that came down to the wire featuring a Jazz buzzer-beater that never was. Utah forward Lauri Markkanen’s game-ending shot was waved off when, after review, it was found the ball didn’t leave his hands before time expired.
After the game, Utah players confidently disagreed with the game's finish. The team believed there should have been more time on the clock after De’Aaron Fox’s layup the play before that gave the Kings a two-point lead. Instead of 0.4 seconds on the clock, the team thought Markkanen's shot should have come with 0.6 seconds remaining.
Following his team's loss, Markkanen told reporters he thought he got the shot off in time.
But even he knows how difficult these things can be when it comes down to stopping a clock ticking at tenths of a second.
“I saw the screenshots saying that there was supposed to be 0.6 left, but with human error, it’s impossible to know exactly when to stop the clock,” Markkanen said (h/t Deseret News).
NBA
“It’s easy to say from a picture that there should have been 0.2 more and then the shot counts, but in the moment, someone just pressing a button, it’s impossible to get it exactly right.”
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Basketball is a game of seconds, where every moment counts.
And thanks to the Kings’ hard-fought play across four quarters, they were able to walk away with their 20th win of the season and hold onto the Western Conference’s No. 5 seed.