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Should the Jazz have had more time on their last play against the Heat?

Gordon Hayward tries to beat the buzzer. (Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE/Getty Images)
Gordon Hayward tries to beat the buzzer. (Melissa Majchrzak/NBAE/Getty Images)

While the eyes of the basketball-watching world were trained on Cleveland and Oakland, the Miami Heat and Utah Jazz locked horns in a surprisingly high-scoring and exciting back-and-forth battle that came down to the final second and the very last play of the game … and, perhaps, the ticks and possession that immediately preceded them.

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With 13.2 seconds remaining on the game clock and eight seconds left on the shot clock following a timeout, the Heat had the ball and a one-point lead, and sought one last score to put the game away. Point guard Goran Dragic drove to the basket, but his attempted drop-off pass to center Hassan Whiteside didn’t find its intended target, leading to a scramble for the loose ball:

Jazz swingman Joe Ingles wound up with the ball and called timeout with 3.9 seconds remaining. Utah advanced the ball to the frontcourt, looking for a game-winner that would send their fans home happy:

… only to come up just short when Gordon Hayward’s attempt — a leaning jumper from the left elbow that he was forced to shoot after double-clutching thanks to a great contest by Heat forward James Johnson — bounced off the rim and awry, and Jazz center Rudy Gobert’s putback attempt came after the final buzzer sounded, allowing Miami to escape with a 111-110 win.

Except … are we sure Utah shouldn’t have had more time for that last possession?

And, since Hayward’s shot came with one second remaining …

The league’s official play-by-play had the previous Miami possession starting with 27.9 seconds left, which would track with 3.9 being left over after the shot clock expired. As we noted up top, though, after the Heat called timeout, there were 13.2 seconds on the game clock and eight on the game clock, which would seem to indicate that the Jazz would’ve had 5.2 seconds to play with had the full 24 seconds elapsed, rather than the 3.9 they got after play continued without a whistle or stoppage, Ingles gained possession and called timeout. In a one-point game where an eventual game-winner was waved off for coming after the buzzer, those disappearing 1.3 seconds might have made a pretty big difference.

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Given the bang-bang nature of the play — run the tape back again and again, and it’s real tough to tell whether Ingles has full possession of the ball before the clock expires — it would seem to stand to reason that the officials at the NBA Replay Center, would have wanted to take another look at the play. As referee Ed Malloy explained to pool reported Andy Larsen of KSL.com after the game, though, the on-site zebras couldn’t kick the play to Secaucus, N.J.:

… which does seem kind of weird:

On top of the clock curiosity, the Jazz might have had a gripe about an uncalled foul by Heat guard Tyler Johnson on Utah veteran Joe Johnson during the scramble for rebounding position on Hayward’s shot:

The confluence of events left the Jazz wondering what exactly had just happened — and stepping carefully with how they discussed it all, according to Jody Genessy of the Deseret News:

Seconds [after the final buzzer], Quin Snyder erupted at referee crew chief Ed Malloy as he made his way off the court. Two assistant coaches restrained Snyder as the Utah coach vociferously made his point and tried to move toward Malloy.

Snyder was clearly still upset by the way the game ended, but he calmly avoided saying anything fine-worthy in his postgame press conference.

“There was a number of things late in the game that were a little bit confusing,” Snyder said. “We got a shot. Rudy got a putback that was after the buzzer. And …”

As the coach paused, a Jazz PR official moved the interview along by saying, “Next question.” […]

“We haven’t gotten an explanation on anything — the shot clock, the game clock,” Snyder said. “We thought there was more time on the game clock on the last possession.”

After the game, Gobert, who finished with six points, 10 rebounds, three blocks, an assist and one game-winner-that-wasn’t in 35 minutes, took to Twitter to express his displeasure at what he viewed as Utah’s rough luck:

But Hayward, who continued his stellar recent play with a game-high 32 points, seven assists, three rebounds and two steals in 40 turnover-free minutes, stopped short of attributing the Jazz’s close-but-no-cigar finish to clock-operator error, according to Genessy:

Hayward’s response when asked what having an extra second or so could’ve done: “It allows you to take an extra dribble, take maybe two or three dribbles, but that’s not something that I can necessarily control. I can control what happens when I get the basketball. […] I’ve got to hit one of the last two shots, the three. I’ve got to hit one one of those, so it’s on me.”

After watching his team allow 111 points on 51.2 percent shooting to a Heat squad that came into Thursday ranked 27th among 30 NBA teams in points scored per possession, Snyder agreed:

Hayward and Snyder are right. Had the Jazz made one or two more shots, or gotten one or two more stops, the shot-clock-violation-or-timeout issue becomes a moot point, and even if there had been an extra second on the clock, there’s no guarantee that either Hayward’s or Gobert’s shot go up in time — or if the Jazz even run the same play, or generate a similar outcome, etc. That doesn’t make the way things unfolded any easier for Utah to swallow, though … and, should one loss mean the difference between where the 11-9 Jazz slot into the Western Conference playoff picture — or, heaven forfend, whether they make the field at all — you can bet it won’t do much to assuage fans’ anger.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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