An NBA re-do

I know I don’t blog about the NBA much, but this is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.

The NBA granted a protest by the Miami Heat, meaning the last 51 seconds of their December 117-111 loss against the Atlanta Hawks are going to be re-played.

In that game, Shaquille O’Neal fouled out of the game with only five fouls — a foul earlier in the game by Udonis Haslem was given to Shaq. From the NBA press release:

NBA Commissioner David Stern found that the Hawks were grossly negligent in committing this scoring error, since they failed to follow league-mandated scoring procedures and failed to respond effectively when the members of the statisticians’ crew noticed the mistake.

I knew you could put a baseball game under protest and on a rare occasion, play the same game again from the point of the protest (remember the pine tar game?) but I had no idea that you could do this in the NBA.

I’m glad the NBA has this rule, because no team should ever lose a game because of the wrong interpretation of the rules. Bad calls are one thing, that’s something the human eye can miss. But losing because of something like a player fouling out with only 5 fouls is demoralizing and inexcusable.

These teams will play the final 51 seconds over before their regularly-scheduled game on March 8 with the score 114-111.

Links of the Day/Weekend

Did no one in the Indians’ organization see the irony of naming their ballpark Progressive Field? (Bugs & Cranks)

I’ve seen some really bad mistakes by newspapers over the years, but the Ohio State student paper ran a photo on their cover after the championship game that looked a lot like the smoke around Ground Zero right after 9-11. (Awful Announcing)

Tony Romo isn’t the only player in Sunday’s showdown that wants to date Jessica Simpson. (Larry Brown Sports)

The player with the hardest name to spell in baseball just got a one-year deal with the A’s. (Babes Love Baseball)

Darren Rovell, armed with actual knowledge and experience, says what I’ve been trying say for years — a college football playoff system would make more money than the current bowl system. It’s really not that complicated people. (Sports Biz with Darren Rovell)