Rick Carlisle Calls Pacers' Final-Play No-Call a 'Football-Caliber Collision'

Rick Carlisle did not wait for a question about the final play of the Pacers’ 125-122 loss to the Mavericks on Monday night. He opened his postgame press conference by demanding one, then called the uncalled collision between Caleb Martin and Pascal Siakam a football-caliber collision and said it was clearly a foul. By then he had already chased official J.D. DeRosa across the court at the American Airlines Center, and the only thing he would not say afterwards was what DeRosa told him.

What happened on the final play?

The Pacers had one chance left and it never became a shot. Down three with 3.7 seconds to play, Indiana grabbed a missed free throw, called timeout to advance the ball, and inbounded from the sideline. Andrew Nembhard lobbed a pass toward Siakam at the opposite elbow, Martin broke on it, got a hand on the ball and collided with Siakam, and both men went to the floor. Mavericks guard Walter Clayton Jr. chased down the loose ball as the clock ran out, and the officials never blew the whistle.

The sequence had started a possession earlier, when Dallas forward P.J. Washington missed two free throws that would have sealed the win. Obi Toppin secured the rebound for Indiana and called the timeout that set up the final play. That is the detail that makes the ending sting for the Pacers: they did everything right to earn the last possession, and then never got a look at the basket.

What did Carlisle actually say?

He said it before anyone asked. “Anybody going to ask about the last play?” Carlisle said, opening his press conference, the Indianapolis Star reports. “It was a football-caliber collision,” he continued. “It’s clearly a foul. We would have been shooting two free throws with 3.5 seconds left. I’m at a loss for what was being looked at. Then you ask and the response is shocking. Our team fought their hearts out in this game. They deserved an opportunity to win the game. That whistle needs to blow. It almost looks like targeting a defenseless player in a football game.”

He had already made the same point on the court. Carlisle pursued DeRosa after the final horn to confront him about the call and get his explanation, and he declined to repeat what he was told. “I’m not going to get into it,” Carlisle said. “I’m probably already whatever. It happened right in front of me and the official. They may have been intentionally fouling. That looked like that may have been a possibility. I don’t know for sure.” Siakam, who also believed he was fouled, said he got no response from the official either.

Would a foul even have saved the Pacers?

Probably not, and the honest part of Carlisle’s night is that he knew it. The Indianapolis Star’s own account of the play notes that even if the foul had been called, it probably would not have changed the outcome. Dallas, up three with 3.7 seconds left, might have wanted to put the Pacers on the free-throw line for two shots rather than risk a game-tying three-pointer. Siakam would then have had to intentionally miss the second free throw and hope to grab just the Pacers’ second offensive rebound of the game, or make both, foul the Mavericks and hope time remained for another three.

That is what separates this row from a simple blown call. Carlisle was not arguing that the whistle cost his team the game. He was arguing that his team had earned the right to lose it properly, on a play rather than on a swallow of the whistle. “This team, our team, fought their hearts out in this game,” he said. “They deserved an opportunity to win the game.” It is the same argument Jalen Brunson made when a visible Gobert push still drew a flopping technical on him, and the same line the league’s new emphasis keeps testing: Scottie Barnes drew the first push-off call of the preseason for contact the officials decided to police, and here the officials decided not to police it at all.

What is the case that the officials got it right?

That Martin played the ball, not the man, and got there first. Mavs Moneyball reports that Martin got his hand on the ball and tipped it well away from Siakam before the two players’ bodies made contact, and concludes it appeared to be the correct no-call by the referees. Dallas had set the play up on purpose: coach Dusty May substituted Kyrie Irving out for Martin on the final possession for his length and defensive ability, and Martin rewarded the call with the defensive stop of the night.

The split is the story. Pacers fan pages are calling the collision a foul. Dallas supporters are celebrating Martin’s defensive play. EssentiallySports notes the same divide, and the two accounts of the same half-second cannot both be right about what the whistle should have done. The ball was tipped and the bodies collided, in that order, and the argument is about which of those two facts the officials were supposed to weigh.

How did the game get to that point?

Indiana had controlled most of it and lost it late. Siakam scored 26 of his game-high 29 points before halftime on 8-of-9 shooting, and the Pacers carried a 66-56 lead into the break and led by as many as 13. Dallas mounted its rally behind a historic night from Cooper Flagg, who recorded a career performance with 43 points, 10 rebounds and six assists, while Irving poured in 35 points on seven three-pointers. Together the pair scored 78 points on 27-of-43 shooting, and Irving finished a game-high plus-29.

The Mavericks also won the game on the glass, 43-27, with a 10-1 edge in offensive rebounds, and they did it on the second night of a back-to-back to move to 7-4. Aaron Nesmith kept Indiana alive with late threes and finished with 18, but the Pacers fell to 3-8 without Tyrese Haliburton. The season’s officiating arguments keep arriving in the same week: Draymond Green policed a rookie’s shot selection on the sideline in one game, and the league is still explaining the one-gram chip inside its game ball in another.

What happens next?

The Pacers host the Washington Wizards on Wednesday, and two things will settle how long this row runs. The first is whether the league responds to Carlisle’s remarks, which were direct criticism of a named official on the record. The second is the Last Two Minute Report, which will say plainly whether the officials missed a foul on the final play. Carlisle has already given the league its headline, and he has already given the Pacers theirs: a team that fought its way back into a game it had no business winning, then watched the last three seconds end without a whistle.