NBA Ref Explains Why He's Making The Lakers And Spurs Stand Around: "I'm Stalling For Commercial Time."

The Lakers lost. Yes, again. That's not news, but this fourth-quarter conference, between Mike D'Antoni, Gregg Popovich, and referee Bill Kennedy, is one of the best things we've seen in a while.

The longer video shows the Lakers and Spurs milling around, talking with each other, for about a minute before Kennedy explains to the coaches what's going on. There was confusion over whether D'Antoni called a full timeout or a 20-second timeout, but he was out of 20s. Kennedy didn't grant the timeout, but was under the impression ESPN had cut to an ad break. He couldn't start the game because he thought they were still in commercial, and couldn't let the players huddle near the benches either. So he asked the coaches to hang out with him for a bit and kill some time.

"OK, you called a full and you wanted a 20. And you didn't have one—you called it in the third quarter. TV went to a 20, thought it was going to be a 20, all right. So what I'm doing right now is I'm stalling. I'm stalling for commercial time, and that's why we're doing this right now, and I need your help."