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TORONTO — Even as they were considering an official protest of the outcome, they were resigned to it.
Even as they were wrestling with the unfairness of it, they were all too aware they had brought this on themselves.
A day after yet another bizarre trip to Atlanta, the Toronto Raptors could be sure of just one thing: A win Friday night against the Charlotte Bobcats will guarantee an NBA playoff spot; more wins in their final seven regular-season games might improve their seeding.
The rest is beyond their control.
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- Charlotte Bobcats
- Detroit Pistons
- Toronto Raptors
- Mike Bibby
- Chris Bosh
- Carlos Delfino
- T.J. Ford
- Al Horford
As of Thursday night, the Raptors were still considering the benefit of filing a protest with the NBA based on the outcome of their game Wednesday in Atlanta, where it appeared the game clock started a fraction of a second too early and cost Toronto an apparent win.
Teams have 48 hours to lodge a protest and it costs $10,000 (U.S.) to submit it to the league office.
Raptors point guard T.J. Ford scored on a spectacular alley-oop pass thrown from the sidelines by Carlos Delfino with 0.5 seconds left to play in a 107-107 game.
The basket was ruled good on the floor before being waived off by officials after they reviewed the video. But while it appears Ford's fingertips were still on the ball when the clock expired, photographs show the time had ticked down to 0.4 seconds before Ford got the ball. The clock isn't supposed to start until a player on court touches the ball.
The referees start the clock with a push of a button on a remote device strapped to their waists.
"I think it counted, I would have to say we were [robbed]," Ford said after practice yesterday. "If you look at the replay, it's evident that they did start the clock early."
According to NBA spokesman Tim Frank, the clock was started because Hawks forward Al Horford tipped the ball after the pass was made by Delfino.
But several sources close to the team said that there was no mention of the ball being tipped as the call was being argued on the court. There were also doubts about the amount of time on the clock when Ford caught the ball, if it was indeed tipped.
"Either the clock was started late [after it was tipped] or it was started early, and neither answer is satisfactory," one said source.
Frank said he couldn't recall a precedent for a game-deciding call being overturned.
The Raptors went on to lose the game 127-120 in overtime, dropping them into a three-way tie for seventh place in the Eastern Conference before play last night, and raising the possibility of an opening-round match-up with the mighty Detroit Pistons, a team Toronto would rather avoid.
Of small comfort in the aftermath was the Raptors' knowledge that the loss built on the backs of countless mistakes, not just the officials' apparent blunder.
"You always want to say it never comes down to one play [but] it really doesn't. It hurts to say that, in this case, but we had our chances," said Raptors forward Chris Bosh. "You can pinpoint a whole bunch of stuff that we didn't do, but it's in the wind now."
The Raptors blew a 17-point second-half lead and were outscored 20-13 in overtime. In the final seconds the Raptors gave up two uncontested three-point shots — and two offensive rebounds — before the shot by Mike Bibby that sent the game into overtime.
On the three-pointer by Bibby, Ford lost sight of the Hawks guard on the inbounds play, allowing Bibby to drift in behind him for a wide-open three-point look.
Ford recovered but too late and could only hope Bibby missed rather than risk putting him on the foul line with a chance to tie the game.
"I just lost him for a second," Ford said. "The game plan was to foul and not let him get the three-point shot up. But when you're behind [the play] and trying to play catch-up and knowing you're playing against a veteran guy, he gave me a pump fake to throw me off and I wasn't quite sure to pick the time to grab him."
It's not the first time things have gone strangely for the Raptors — or Ford — in Atlanta.
Last season, the scorekeepers failed to count a Ford lay-up in what turned out to be a four-point Raptors loss. In December, Ford was fouled heavily by Hawks rookie forward Horford and ended up missing eight weeks with a neck injury, his career briefly in jeopardy.
And now, the mysterious case of the disappearing fraction of a second and an apparent Raptors victory with it.
"I tell our players all the time, if you have an opportunity to control the outcome, you control it," Mitchell said. "But [Wednesday] we had a chance to control the outcome and we didn't do it."
