Denver coach George Karl started to lean up agains

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Denver coach George Karl started to lean up against a courtside table at the Oklahoma City Arena on Monday when he stopped to move a flat-panel television out of the way first.The screen that referees use to check instant replay during games was still in place, about 16 hours after it sat idle following a controversial call in the Nuggets' 107-103 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series."Is this the referee thing we should have used last night?" Karl asked reporters before starting his interview session. NBA Oklahoma City Thunder Jerseys The NBA ended up agreeing with Karl's take on the pivotal disputed basket.In a statement that referees Steve Javie, Zach Zarba and Bill Kennedy should have ruled that Kendrick Perkins' go-ahead basket with 1:05 left was goaltending and disallowed it. Instead, it counted and put Oklahoma City ahead 102-101, and the Nuggets never recovered."Weren't you in shock at the game? I think we were in shock that the call wasn't made," Karl said. "How can three guys [miss it]? We were in shock, I think, that next possession."The NBA's current rules don't allow for instant replay to be used to review whether a player committed goaltending, but Karl checked out the video to confirm his suspicions.
"When I looked at it on film, I thought it had a chance of going in if he doesn't touch it,ED Hardy Jacket," Karl said. "That's how much it was in the cylinder. It could have caught the rim and bounced up and maybe caught it again and gone in."Karl said he thought the call helped break the Thunder out of a rough shooting stretch, in which they had scored on just one of nine possessions while squandering an eight-point lead."In a strange way, the goaltending thing kind of frustrated us and got us in a funk, so we don't score for two or three possessions in a row," he said.The NBA's acknowledgment of the no-call wasn't echoed in its nearly simultaneous announcement of a $35,000 fine for Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan.On Saturday, after Portland's Game 1 loss to the Mavericks, McMillan questioned why there was such a large free-throw disparity in Dallas' favor. The Mavericks shot 29 free throws, compared to 13 for the Trail Blazers. Dallas had a 19-2 edge in free throws during the fourth quarter, when Dirk Nowitzki was 13 of 13 from the line.McMillan pointed out that Portland shot far fewer free throws despite having a major advantage in points in the paint."There were no calls in some situations," McMillan concluded after a rambling postgame commentary. "But I thought we were being aggressive."
The New York Knicks led the Boston Celtics 85-84 with 21 seconds to play Sunday when Carmelo Anthony was called for an off-the-ball offensive foul for pushing Paul Pierce.Karl said he made his own mistake in the moments that followed, in failing to call a timeout to let his team regroup. Cheap NBA Jerseys The Nuggets, who had several players pointing toward the net and seeking a goaltending call, settled for Kenyon Martin's off-target 21-foot jumper from the left wing on the ensuing possession.Russell Westbrook then drained the clock to 22.4 seconds before hitting a jumper to extend the lead to three, and Oklahoma City went on to close out the game from the foul line."I'm not smart enough," Karl said. "When your team's in shock, you're not going to probably have a good possession. I thought the guy was up through the rim. That's how tight he was on the rim."Perkins' hand went through the net but then just outside the rim to tap in Westbrook's missed 11-foot jumper from the right side.
"Although a player is permitted to touch the net while the ball is in the cylinder above the rim, Perkins also touched the ball while it was still in the cylinder which is a violation and constitutes goaltending," the NBA said in its statement.