Knicks Filing Protest to Dispute Rockets Loss

The New York Knicks are officially taking their dispute of Wednesday's loss to the Houston Rockets to the league office.

The New York Knicks are moving from the hardwood to a literal higher court. 

Per ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, the team is filing a protest with the NBA to dispute Wednesday's loss to the Houston Rockets, a 105-103 defeat drenched in controversy. With the Knicks having erased a 16-point deficit, the seemingly inevitable overtime period never came: Jalen Brunson was called for a three-free throw shooting foul against Aaron Holiday when the latter put up a desperation heave as time was set to expire. 

Troy Taormina, USA TODAY SPORTS

Replays hinted that Brunson had not made sufficient contact to warrant a foul and crew chief Ed Malloy admitted as much in the immediate aftermath. 

"After seeing it during postgame review, the offensive player was able to return to a normal playing position on the floor," Malloy told pool reporter Fred Katz of The Athletic. "The contact which occurred after the release of the ball therefore is incidental and marginal to the shot attempt and should not have been called."

If the Knicks' protest is successful, it will be the first protest upheld since one from the Miami Heat during the 2007-08 season. During December of that campaign, Miami center Shaquille O'Neal was ruled to have fouled out of a game against Atlanta but it was later ruled that he officially had only five. The final 51-plus seconds were played when the teams met for a rematch just under three months later 

As Wojnarowski noted in a follow-up post, the Knicks' protest is well within the 48-hour deadline to file a protest and will now have five days to present evidence. The league office will then have five more days to render a decision. 

If the Knicks' postgame reaction is any indication, they'll have plenty of evidence to submit to the Association offices. New York seemed to take offense to not only the botched call against Brunson but also to a wide free throw discrepancy: Houston had 33 attempts from the line while the Knicks were conversely granted only 12.

Ref That! Knicks-Rockets Official Admits Bad Call Against Brunson

“The thing with the officials, this is the way I feel about that in general, is I don’t really care how tight the game is called. You can call it tight or you can call it loose. I just want consistency to be the same,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “They have a job: they have to control and manage the game. That’s their No. 1 responsibility. They have to use their judgment and I have respect for that. So it didn’t go our way tonight.”