Refs Miss Clear Goaltend That Cost Mavs Win Over Pelicans

Despite the fact that the team went into Wednesday night’s game against the New Orleans Pelicans without the services of Kyrie Irving or Luka Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks came awfully close to picking up a road win. In fact, with about five seconds left, it looked like the Mavs were going to steal one, as PJ Washington forced a Jordan Hawkins turnover with the team down by one point.

Dallas took off in the other direction, and Naji Marshall found Spencer Dinwiddie for a layup that looked like a sure thing. And then, Trey Murphy came flying in, blocked his effort, and got fouled as the hometown crowd lost its collective mind. There was just one problem: Replay clearly showed that Dinwiddie’s layup hit the backboard before Murphy blocked it, which constitutes a goaltend.

The problem for the Mavs was that, because there was no call and the ref blew their whistle after the change in possession, there was nothing that could be done, so Murphy went on to ice the game from the free throw line. Unsurprisingly, this rubbed Mark Cuban the wrong way, so he took to Bluesky to express his frustration.

“All the ref had to do was call a goaltend and they could review it,” Cuban said in a post. “Incompetence at it’s finest.”