CHICAGO - What is it about protests that make the Houston Rockets crash into controversy?
After their GM turned the NBA upside down with a single tweet about protests in Hong Kong last October, the team is poised for another dispute as it reportedly will file a formal protest in hopes of erasing a 135-133 double-overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday.
With 7:50 left in regulation of the aforementioned contest, a James Harden dunk was nullified for offensive interference. The basket should have counted, no question. But the refs missed it and the Rockets allowed the 30-second window to call for a review to lapse.
That should have been the end of it.
Injustices in sports are as common as the wrinkle in the garment you're wearing. It happens. You live with it and life goes on.
Unfortunately, the Rockets are neither accepting nor pragmatic when it comes to officiating.
This is, in case you forgot, the same team which publicly questioned how their team is being officiated, the same team which claimed that it lost 93 points through errant whistles in the 2018 Western Conference Finals.
And now this. They're crying wolf again. Instead of lifting a finger, the NBA should give them one instead.
The Rockets are seeking a ruling that would reverse the original outcome and award them the victory, or replay the final 7:50 at a later date.
If I'm NBA commissioner Adam Silver, this is what I'll tell the Rockets: "Put your big boy pants on and take your lumps like grown men. Go home. Blink your eyes as hard and as fast as you can. There is no weeping in basketball."
Taking the win away from the Spurs would make it appear that the last 7:50 of regulation simply didn't occur. To grant a replay would open a Pandora's box where a bad precedent is set and many future games will be decided not on the playing court but on the court of an arbitrator's opinion.
I'm all for people pursuing to right a wrong. But we're not talking about high crimes and misdemeanors here. We're talking about refs who blew a call. Honestly, not maliciously.
Besides, isn't it a hypocrisy for the Rockets to wail about officiating when its best player travels more often than an airline pilot and gets away with it?
After GM Daryl Morey set the NBA on fire in China, is the NBA ready to deal with another Houston hangover?
If the shoe were on the other foot, I can guarantee you that they wouldn't linger on a missed call. Gregg Popovich can yell at the refs with the best of them, but he never questions the final verdict.
That's why the Spurs have all the championships while the Rockets are stuck with their promises.
THE ROCKETS are simply trying to find fault to cover their own shortcomings.
Even after Harden's dunk was waived off, they were still leading by 13. In fact, Houston increased that cushion to 16 when Harden sank a triple 30 seconds later following a Spurs' empty possession.
The Rockets didn't lose because of one bad call. They lost because of several reasons,
They couldn't hold on to a 22-point third-quarter lead. They allowed the Spurs to score 20 points in the final five minutes of regulation. Their own coach, Mike D'Antoni, said it best to ESPN.
"We just quit playing defense, we quit getting back, we turned in over silly and didn't get back. They got hot, made shots and we just didn't do anything to combat it."
In other words, the smoking gun was the Rockets' atrocious defense. Not a hot whistle.
If you're eating right now or about to drink something, please stop. What I'm about to tell you will make you choke.
In this particular game, Harden and Russell Westbrook laid more bricks than a mason. Westbrook went 7-of-30 from the field while The Beard proved he can do no better, going 11-of-38.
That's a combined 50 missed field goals. That sucks.
If the Rockets want to play the blame game, Harden and Westbrook are the winners, not the refs.
Having said all of the above, I formally protest the Rockets' planned protest.
It's childish.
It's unsportsmanlike.
It's a crime against common sense.
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