The last play of Pacers-Cavs Game 4 was bewildering to everyone watching. Victor Oladipo hit a three-pointer to make the score 103-100 with 11.9 seconds to go. At that point, Lance Stephenson fouled Jeff Green after the inbounds.
The Cavaliers-Pacers Game 4 ending was bizarre. Here’s what happened.
A jump ball overturned to a foul? What happened?
This headlock here by Lance Stephenson was where the obvious initial foul was. I mean this is a straight up tackle.
But confusion set in as fans saw the referee closest calling a jump ball. This was the camera angle fans were shown in real time, which is pretty dang obvious what is happening. He’s also standing over the play. This was the perfect camera angle to cause pandemonium for the next five minutes.
So at this point we have a jump ball, which is huge for the Pacers given they are down only three and now the referees are heading to the replay center to check for a hostile act. The potential hostile act was Jeff Green shoving Stephenson, which you can see briefly here.
So the call is a jump ball with a potential free throw for Indiana, right? Because of a Jeff Green technical. And they’re only down three points? WOW.
No ... that’s wrong.
Instead, Jeff Green walked to the free throw line to shoot two free throws and there was no jump ball.
Wait ... what?!
Okay, what really happened?
Stephenson’s headlock on Green is what earned the foul call. Yes, another referee called jump ball but the other foul call gets precedence in that situation and it also happened before the jump ball. The review was for a hostile act, which the referees determined did not happen with either player. The foul call then resulted in two Jeff Green free throws. There was never a jump ball.
Whew.
The Cavaliers went on to win 104-100 as the series is now tied a two games a piece. Game 5 will be Wednesday in Cleveland.
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