When Was the Last Time a Protest Was Upheld in the NBA? Can Knicks Repeat Shaquille O’Neal’s Success?

On Monday, the New York Knicks controversially lost to the Houston Rockets. With the game tied at 103-103, Rockets’ Jalen Green tried to bulldoze his way to the rim, but after failing, he threw a pass to Aaron Holiday, who threw up a hailmary shot, which wasn’t anywhere close to the rim, seemingly sending the game into overtime.

However, the referee called Knicks guard Jalen Brunson for a foul, giving Holiday three free throws. He hit the first two and missed the third on purpose to ensure the 0.3 seconds left on the clock elapsed, and the Rockets secured the win.

The Knicks were incensed by the foul call. To add to their frustration, the referees later admitted they made the wrong call. In the Pool Report, Crew Chief Ed Malloy was asked if the foul call on Brunson was correct. He said,

“After seeing it during postgame review, the offensive player was able to return to a normal playing position on the floor. 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.”

The Knicks have officially filed a protest and are demanding the game be declared a tie or the two teams play overtime to determine the result. Unfortunately for New York, winning a protest in the NBA is very rare, as protests have been filed 46 times, and only six have ever won.

The last time a team successfully filed a protest was back in December 2007. The Miami Heat protested their 114-111 loss to the Atlanta Hawks after Shaquille O’Neal was incorrectly ejected from the game for seemingly racking up six fouls. However, the center had only five fouls at the time and was still ejected from the game, prompting the Heat to protest.

The protest was deemed correct, and the final 51.7 seconds were replayed on March 8th, 2008. Neither team scored a single point in the replay, and the game finished 114-111. O’Neal, whose ejection prompted the protest, did not play the replay because the Heat had already traded him to the Phoenix Suns in February.

Will the Knicks and Rockets game be replayed?

The New York Knicks made correct use of the apparatus at their disposal to get justice. However, it’s unlikely that they’ll get their replay. For a game to be replayed, the protest must prove a “misapplication” of a rule. The NBA does often not entertain a protest that bores out of a missed call from a referee.

If the NBA starts allowing teams to get replays for poor calls from referees, almost every team would use it, given how often the officiating crew messes up calls. If the Knicks and Rockets game is replayed, it would set a bad precedent, and the NBA wouldn’t want that.

In January 2023, the referees admitted to missing an easy foul call on LeBron James at the end of a hard-fought between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics.

The Lakers lost the game in overtime but did not protest the result. They accepted that they were on the receiving end of a poor call and moved on. However, if the league gives in to the Knicks’ protest, that would change quickly. Incidents like these would lead to more protests and perhaps more replays.

The Knicks’ odds of getting a tie or a replay are rare. The criteria to force a replay and the precedent that it would set make it impossible for New York to get justice.