INDIANAPOLIS — The NBA office said Tuesday the referees in Monday night's Boston-Indiana game made the wrong call on a foul with 0.6 seconds to go, resulting in the decisive free throws that gave Indiana a 133-131 win.
In Tuesday's Last Two Minute Report, league officials said Celtics forward Kristaps Porzingis only made “incidental arm contact occurring concurrent with the block" on Bennedict Mathurin's final shot.
The referees correctly conducted a replay review to determine if the contact occurred before the buzzer sounded and whether time should be added to the clock, which it was. But the report said the play was not reviewable under the replay trigger and Boston was out of challenges.
Mathurin made the tie-breaking free throws to beat the Eastern Conference's top team and square the teams' season series at 2-2.
Moments earlier, Indiana's Buddy Hield was whistled for a foul on Boston's Jaylen Brown, who was shooting with 3.2 seconds left in the tie game.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle challenged the call and upon review, the referee crew determined no foul had been committed. Indiana gained possession when Aaron Nesmith grabbed the rebound of Brown's missed shot, setting up the Pacers' possession that won the game.
In Tuesday's report, the league determined that the decision to overturn the foul call was the correct one, as Hield made contact with the ball, along with "minimal contact" to Brown's head, which the league said was "correctly deemed incidental."
After the Celtics committed a foul, which they had to give, the league noted a pair of incidents of contact involving Indiana's Myles Turner, neither of which were called as a foul. The first incident, during a screen on Brown, was determined to be correctly not called, but the second, contact with Derrick White during a screen, was missed, according to the NBA's report.
The Pacers are back in action Wednesday night, hosting Washington at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.