Note the pointspread for this game was 3/3.5 for the Hawks...
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ageid=968867503640&col=970081593064&t=TS_Home
Raptors coach Sam Mitchell was getting off a plane from Atlanta in the wee hours of yesterday morning when a team employee pointed out to him what alert TV viewers had known for hours: The Raptors had been shorted two points down the stretch of their Friday night loss to the Hawks.
"At that point, all I could do was get in the car and keep myself from driving myself off the road at 500 kilometres an hour," said Mitchell.
Sober second thought has revealed that the Raptors lost Friday night's game 97-95, which is a different result than the final score, 97-93, that was transmitted to thousands of televisions and newspapers and websites. A successful layup by T.J. Ford with 4:33 to play was recorded as a miss by the Hawks employees charged with keeping track of such things. No one among the Raptors' travelling party pointed out the error to the authorities until it was far too late.
"We have no excuse for not knowing what the score is," said Bryan Colangelo, the Raptors general manager, who had been watching the game from Toronto and unwound the mystery of the lost deuce yesterday morning.
The discrepancy had major implications on the outcome. Ford, after all, hit a three-pointer with 27 seconds left to bring the score — at least the one they were showing on the arena score clock — to 95-93. But Ford's long bomb, unbeknownst to almost everyone, had actually tied the game 95-95. The Raptors, if they'd been aware of the true score, would have surely behaved differently. Instead of fouling Joe Johnson with 23 seconds to go, as they did, they would have played on and been guaranteed another possession to either tie or win the game.
At least one person in attendance caught wind of the error. Arthur Triche, a Hawks spokesman who was sitting courtside, said a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution pointed out that the Raptors were short two points. But when Triche approached the official scorekeeper on the matter, the scorekeeper — who has been doing the job without incident, according to Triche, for "20-some years" — said all was well.
In any event, no one else with doubts spoke up loudly enough. Fred Jones, the Raptors swingman, said he thought the game was tied when Ford hit the trey, but he was too busy playing to complain. Jay Triano, the Raptors assistant coach, asked trainer Scott McCullough, who keeps track of fouls, if the score was correct, and McCullough, according to Colangelo, said he thought it was. Various broadcasters have their stories. Mitchell wondered aloud why none of them alerted the visitors bench.
Said Chris Bosh, shaking his head: "This is the NBA — I didn't think things like that happen."
It didn't help that the computerized statistics system at Philips Arena was lost to a power outage for the final six or seven minutes of play, which meant the stats crew usually in charge of entering points and rebounds and assists into a computer reverted to pens and paper. Even so, everyone involved said they had never seen an error quite like this, which speaks to the systems in place to catch such gaffes.
The official scorekeeper hand writes every scoring play into the official scorebook. He sits next to an operator who independently updates the score clock. And the stats crew also keeps a running play-by-play, which in Friday night's late moments was done by hand. Still, not one of them caught Ford's layup, perhaps because they were busy fixing another miscue.
On a previous play, Atlanta's Joe Johnson made a free throw that was credited to the Raptors. After Ford scored, the score clock operator took away the Johnson point from Toronto and gave it to its rightful owner. Ford's bucket was, around the same time, overlooked.
"As soon as the power went down, I was dreading the entire night," said Triche. "I said to myself, `This is a tight game coming down to the wire. I hope nothing gets screwed up.' And apparently it did."
Colangelo, who said he spent much of yesterday on the phone with league officials, who are believed to be reviewing the situation, said the Raptors would heretofore give someone on staff the job of monitoring the score. Mitchell said the duties would likely fall to Keith D'Amelio, the strength and conditioning coach.
"If it's our fault then it's our fault," said Mitchell. "Everywhere I've ever been you've got those guys called official scorers — they're supposed to (do their job). ... I've never seen anything like it in my life."
Said Bosh, shaking his head: "The game is gone."
No one had an easy time letting it go.
"For whatever reason, this year, whatever could go wrong has went wrong," said Mitchell. "And I told (the players), `We gotta get angry about it. We've got to understand no one's going to give us anything.'"
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ageid=968867503640&col=970081593064&t=TS_Home
Raptors coach Sam Mitchell was getting off a plane from Atlanta in the wee hours of yesterday morning when a team employee pointed out to him what alert TV viewers had known for hours: The Raptors had been shorted two points down the stretch of their Friday night loss to the Hawks.
"At that point, all I could do was get in the car and keep myself from driving myself off the road at 500 kilometres an hour," said Mitchell.
Sober second thought has revealed that the Raptors lost Friday night's game 97-95, which is a different result than the final score, 97-93, that was transmitted to thousands of televisions and newspapers and websites. A successful layup by T.J. Ford with 4:33 to play was recorded as a miss by the Hawks employees charged with keeping track of such things. No one among the Raptors' travelling party pointed out the error to the authorities until it was far too late.
"We have no excuse for not knowing what the score is," said Bryan Colangelo, the Raptors general manager, who had been watching the game from Toronto and unwound the mystery of the lost deuce yesterday morning.
The discrepancy had major implications on the outcome. Ford, after all, hit a three-pointer with 27 seconds left to bring the score — at least the one they were showing on the arena score clock — to 95-93. But Ford's long bomb, unbeknownst to almost everyone, had actually tied the game 95-95. The Raptors, if they'd been aware of the true score, would have surely behaved differently. Instead of fouling Joe Johnson with 23 seconds to go, as they did, they would have played on and been guaranteed another possession to either tie or win the game.
At least one person in attendance caught wind of the error. Arthur Triche, a Hawks spokesman who was sitting courtside, said a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution pointed out that the Raptors were short two points. But when Triche approached the official scorekeeper on the matter, the scorekeeper — who has been doing the job without incident, according to Triche, for "20-some years" — said all was well.
In any event, no one else with doubts spoke up loudly enough. Fred Jones, the Raptors swingman, said he thought the game was tied when Ford hit the trey, but he was too busy playing to complain. Jay Triano, the Raptors assistant coach, asked trainer Scott McCullough, who keeps track of fouls, if the score was correct, and McCullough, according to Colangelo, said he thought it was. Various broadcasters have their stories. Mitchell wondered aloud why none of them alerted the visitors bench.
Said Chris Bosh, shaking his head: "This is the NBA — I didn't think things like that happen."
It didn't help that the computerized statistics system at Philips Arena was lost to a power outage for the final six or seven minutes of play, which meant the stats crew usually in charge of entering points and rebounds and assists into a computer reverted to pens and paper. Even so, everyone involved said they had never seen an error quite like this, which speaks to the systems in place to catch such gaffes.
The official scorekeeper hand writes every scoring play into the official scorebook. He sits next to an operator who independently updates the score clock. And the stats crew also keeps a running play-by-play, which in Friday night's late moments was done by hand. Still, not one of them caught Ford's layup, perhaps because they were busy fixing another miscue.
On a previous play, Atlanta's Joe Johnson made a free throw that was credited to the Raptors. After Ford scored, the score clock operator took away the Johnson point from Toronto and gave it to its rightful owner. Ford's bucket was, around the same time, overlooked.
"As soon as the power went down, I was dreading the entire night," said Triche. "I said to myself, `This is a tight game coming down to the wire. I hope nothing gets screwed up.' And apparently it did."
Colangelo, who said he spent much of yesterday on the phone with league officials, who are believed to be reviewing the situation, said the Raptors would heretofore give someone on staff the job of monitoring the score. Mitchell said the duties would likely fall to Keith D'Amelio, the strength and conditioning coach.
"If it's our fault then it's our fault," said Mitchell. "Everywhere I've ever been you've got those guys called official scorers — they're supposed to (do their job). ... I've never seen anything like it in my life."
Said Bosh, shaking his head: "The game is gone."
No one had an easy time letting it go.
"For whatever reason, this year, whatever could go wrong has went wrong," said Mitchell. "And I told (the players), `We gotta get angry about it. We've got to understand no one's going to give us anything.'"
