The Toronto Raptors recently managed to keep themselves from a hole no team has come out of before, only 0.5 seconds from facing a 3-0 deficit against the Boston Celtics.
Yet before Kemba Walker doled out a swift dime to an open Daniel Theis in the final second of Game 3, Raptors All-Star Kyle Lowry was making use of a loophole that has proven to be the NBA's true “cheat code.”
A savvy double-team by Fred VanVleet and Marc Gasol had Walker trapped, but a looping crossover got the shifty guard around the 7-foot-1 Gasol and into the paint, where Lowry made his move.
Once Walker got past the double-team, the Raptors veteran flashed after camping to “guard” Theis for more than five seconds — a violation that should have been called by the referees.
Naturally, the Last Two Minute Report the next day stated Lowry should have been called for a three-second violation, which would have earned the Celtics a trip to the foul line with only seconds left in regulation.
Here's the play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCpYJz6iknQ
As it turns out, Lowry was playing the odds … and he was playing with house money.
According to research done by The Pudding (via Tom Haberstroh of NBC Sports), NBA officials had 141 instances of defensive three seconds in the last two minutes of close games from 2015 to 2018. Out of those, they called exactly one.
It was, by far, the most-missed call by the referees, going undetected in 99.3% of instances. Crunch time often puts referees on high alert and even higher scrutiny, but that alertness can at times make them blind to the otherwise obvious.
In a world where block/charge and out-of-bounds calls dominate the end of a game, it's the sneaky ones like a three-second defensive violation that go uncalled — this one at an alarming rate.
In contrast, traveling calls were missed 79.4% of the time and kicked-ball violations were missed 16.3% of the time.
Lowry was betting on the odds and he won, even if he gave up a bucket to Walker on that play. Lowry only needed five ticks to deliver an on-the-money pass to an open OG Anunoby, who nailed the final dagger from the corner to get the Raptors back in the series.
Toronto is now down 3-2 and will need its stout defense to show up in Game 6. Nick Nurse and the Raptors have tried to exploit this loophole all season (and especially lately) with a lot of zone defense, and they'll surely try to take advantage again in order to stay alive against Boston.
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