THE PBA Commissioner's Office has suspended the referee who called a offensive foul on Meralco import Akil Mitchell in a critical juncture of do-or-die Game 3 which the Bolts lost to Barangay Ginebra on Sunday night.
League officials confirmed the referee will not be part of the pool of game officials for 'the next few playdates' as punishment for the wrong call, which was reversed after a video review following a challenge by Meralco.
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The call, however, had wide-ranging repercussions for the Bolts which lost the chance to cut down on a 77-72 Ginebra lead and lost active consultant Nenad Vucinic to a second technical for 'disrespectful language to a referee.'
Ginebra won, 94-87, to advance to a best-of-seven semifinal against top seed NorthPort.
But unlike the referee who was suspended for the rest of the conference after Rain or Shine's Game One loss to Converge in their own quarterfinal, the referee in the Ginebra-Meralco match got a relatively lighter punishment because of some mitigating circumstances.
League officials bared that from his angle on the baseline, the referee made the correct call. However, a review of the play from four different camera angles showed Justin Brownlee holding on to Mitchell's waist, which the referee missed.
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Despite the call being eventually reversed and proven wrong after the technical committee's own review, the technical on Vucinic and the corresponding penalty for an ejection will still stand, officials added.
The technical was Vucinic's fourth of the conference.
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