Mavericks avoid loser mentality, choose not to protest loss against Pelicans

It would’ve been a losing proposition, anyways

It’s no secret that the Dallas Mavericks (22-19) suffered a horrific 119-116 loss on Wednesday night to the New Orleans Pelicans. The goaltending violation committed by Pels forward Trey Murphy II on Spencer Dinwiddie’s go-ahead layup attempt went uncalled with 4.5 seconds left in the game, which has since been confirmed by the NBA’s Last 2 Minutes report on Thursday. As we know, the NBA’s Last 2 Minutes report is really a slap in the face to fans who watch these games and knew what happened 18 hours earlier. Results don’t change, no accountability is taken, and “whoops!” doesn’t get you a win back.

One option that naturally has been thrown around is the idea of protesting the game, in hopes of getting the last 4.5 seconds replayed. If the call was so blatantly missed, why can’t they just count the basket and start it from there when the Mavs visit New Orleans again on January 29th? Well, protests are reserved for when teams feel as if there has been a “misapplication of the game rules,” per the NBA. “Game rules” does not equal “missed calls by the refs”. Calls that are made or missed by referees in game are judgement calls, therefore there really isn’t anything to do about it besides enjoy our validation of community noting the NBA’s twitter account.

Protested games & its unfavorable history

The only successful protest in the last 40 years of NBA history is from 2007, where the Miami Heat successfully protested that referees fouled Shaquille O’Neal out of a game with less than a minute remaining in overtime when he only had five fouls. Because of that, the remaining time in that game against the Atlanta Hawks had to be replayed at a later date. Ironically, Shaq was traded before the remainder of the game could be completed, so the impacted player didn’t even play after the resumption of play.

The last protested game was in February of 2024, where the New York Knicks unsuccessfully protested that a foul called on Jalen Brunson was a misapplication of the rules. The Mavericks have protested games twice since 2020, with neither of them being successful. The first in 2020 was, ironically enough, also over a goaltending call against Dorian Finney-Smith in a loss against the Atlanta Hawks. The second protest in recent years was in March of 2023, known around here as “the season from hell”. In that game against the Golden State Warriors, there was confusion about who had possession of the ball out of a timeout, leading to an uncontested layup for the Dubs in a game the Mavs lost by two. Overall, there have been 45 protested games in the NBA’s history, with just six (13.3%) of those being successful.

Protesting this game would be loser mentality

Beyond all of the reasons that this protest would fail, there’s one very simple one that we’re skipping over. I’d have some sympathy for the Mavericks if they’d have played good basketball but fallen short in the end with that missed call. But they didn’t! The last six minutes of this game was an offensive abomination. While the missed goaltending call rightfully gets criticized, we’re skipping over the fact that the Mavs shouldn’t have even been in that spot to begin with if they’d have played better. They let CJ McCollum drive coast to coast with four seconds left in the second quarter, which allowed the Pels to take the lead into halftime after Dallas had worked back into a tied game. Down the stretch, bad isolations by Spencer Dinwiddie & Klay Thompson combined with some questionable coaching from the staff gets you get the result that you deserve: a loss to the worst team in the Western Conference by record. Trying to frame it as anything other than that is just excusing away bad play, and that is loser mentality.