a triple and an incomprehensible referee decision worked the miracle | Relief

What happened at the end of the first extra time of Slovakia-Spain is, simply, inexplicableand. It is impossible to describe how such an ending came about, a legendary comeback… which was possible thanks to the fact that the referees, quite possibly wrongly, awarded Yusta’s final triple that made it 67-67 with which The second extra time has been forced. It all stems from the errors in the functioning of the clock, which incomprehensibly did not run when it had to run and the referees, who could see it on the screen, decided to validate to the mechanism and grant the launch. Difficult to find a rational solution, in every sense. Nothing better than seeing it to draw conclusions:

There are four tenths left on the game clock and Slovakia is three points ahead: 67-64. The Slovaks prepare to take off from the bottom, with Fran Guerra trying to intercept the shipment and work an unlikely miracle. It is not entirely clear in the replay whether the Spanish player comes into contact with the ball, although it seems that he did.. If he does, the game is over, since time starts running the moment someone touches the ball.

The fact is that the clock had not been activated, so it goes to the position of Yusta and Brodziansky and they both touch the ball in their dispute. This goes to the ground and bounces on the hardwood, another reason enough for the four tenths to reach zero and the game to end. Again, the clock doesn’t work.

Yusta finally grabs the ball, raises his arms and shoots for the basket.. He scores it: a triple shot without any type of discussion. Let’s recap: possible contact by the player attacking the serve, double touch by the two who are fighting for the ball, bounce on the ground and throw. All this happened in four tenths. A miracle never seen before. The clock starts ticking when the Spaniard is about to take the shot.

The Spanish players almost with more shame than anything else, although also with the faith of a team that always believes in miracles, energetically request the review to see if the action was on time. The referees go to the table to review it carefully and after a few minutes of review they agree to grant it and the game goes to the second overtime. Although it is clearly seen in the images that the clock does not work, they decide to ignore this fact and only judge when the ball leaves Yusta’s hands, accepting the time taken on the electronic behind the clock. the basket

Indeed, there Yusta does release the ball before the horn sounds, something that would not have been possible in any case if the clock had worked as it should. Such a flagrant error finally led to Spain’s victory in the second overtime, which allows it to remain very alive and get the national team’s qualification on track for the next edition of Eurobasket.

It should be remembered that basketball protocols state that for a basket to be considered valid there must be two tenths on the stopwatch in case of tap and six tenths for receiving and shooting. Here you don’t just receive and shoot, but there is also a pot.

That is an unwritten rule, the FIBA ​​regulations are more generic and say the following: “The game clock or shot clock must show 0.3 (3 tenths of a second) or more for a player to gain control of the ball on a throw-in or rebound after the last free throw to attempt a shot on goal . If the game clock or shot clock shows 0.2 or 0.1, the only valid type of goal that can be scored is by directly touching or dunking the ball, as long as the player’s hand(s) are already are not touching the ball when the game clock or shot clock shows 0.0“.

Here in four everything happened and the judges in charge of judging him covered their eyes. An arbitration error so flagrant that we can only be grateful and, incidentally, consider that it was poetic justice: There was a very clear foul on Pradilla at the 40-minute horn that was not signaled and the Slovaks also touched the net, reason enough to stop the game. With a single free throw converted by the Valencia Basket player we would have won the game. It didn’t happen that way and later they returned it to us. For now, everything is disbelief, but we must not rule out challenges or future consequences in the four tenths longest recorded in a sport.