Lakers Screwed By Two Bad No-Calls Against the Mavericks

The Dallas Mavericks beat the Los Angeles Lakers in double-overtime on Thursday night. Luka Doncic had 35 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists. The game went down to the wire multiple times before the Mavericks pulled out the victory and in the process the Lakers were left complaining about multiple things. First, at the end of regulation Troy Brown Jr. had a three-pointer blocked by Tim Hardaway Jr. at the buzzer.

Hardaway hit Brown's hand, but officials decided that since he got a piece of the ball first, it was clean. This is not the first time we've seen this called this way this season. Way back in November something similar happened when Jimmy Butler hit Stephen Curry's hand on a late-game jump shot. Curry said it was an "awful call," which LeBron James obviously agreed with. LeBron interrupted an interview with Brown in the locker room to say the no-call was a "f-cking foul." Obviously, the league needs to clarify this rule if their two biggest stars have such a public issue with it.

Of course, the issues with the officiating didn't end there. LeBron took the ball to the hoop on the final possession of overtime and was blocked by Christian Wood. At least that's happened in the box score. On the court James was pretty clearly fouled by Wood who elbowed LeBron's left arm as he went up.

There were likely dozens of other calls that could have gone the other way on both sides throughout the game, but these two happened on potential game-deciding plays so they get to be the talking points. And the Lakers appeared to get screwed.