yahoo - 3/15/2026 11:57:26 PM - GMT (+2 )
It turns out that Austin Reaves wasn't fouled late in the Los Angeles Lakers' overtime win over the Denver Nuggets Saturday night.
That's according to Sunday's last-2-minute report from the NBA that states that officials shouldn't have called a foul on Spencer Jones with 9.2 seconds remaining in the game. The foul sent Reaves to the free throw line, and the Lakers ultimately won the game in overtime.
Here's the play in question. The Nuggets had a 116-113 lead with 9.2 seconds remaining in regulation. The Lakers had the ball an an inbounds play in the frontcourt, and LeBron James passed the ball inbounds to Austin Reaves on the sideline.
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Reaves turned around to start a 3-point attempt, but Jones stripped the ball before he could get the shot up. The ball bounced out of bounds.
Officials, however, called a foul on Johnson, perhaps in anticipation of Denver intentionally fouling to prevent Los Angeles from getting up a 3-pointer.
Foul called on Spencer Jones, sending Austin Reaves to the line for two—he sinks both. Denver leads by 2 with 9.2 seconds left. pic.twitter.com/oZtmDfhVtz
— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) March 15, 2026
Reaves went to the line to hit two free throws, and he ultimately send the game to overtime with a putback off a missed free throw in the final second of regulation. Los Angeles went on to a 127-125 win in the extra session in a game that could be critical in a tightly packed Western Conference playoff race.
At the time of the called foul, ESPN's Richard Jefferson and Tim Legler were adamant that officials should have considered calling Jones for a shooting foul worth three free throws — that Reaves was in the act of gathering the ball for the shot when Jones fouled him.
Neither considered that Jones got a clean strip of the ball and didn't actually foul Reaves. But that was what Sunday's last-2-minute report determined, stating that the foul was an incorrect call.
"Jones (DEN) maintains a legal guarding position alongside Reaves' (LAL) path as he defends the shot attempt," Sunday's report reads.
The ball bounced out of bounds off of Jones after the strip, and the Lakers would have been awarded a possession with a correct call. They still would have had a chance to put up points on the possession. But in the end, it was a big, incorrect call in a high-stakes game with the playoffs looming.
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