Nuggets Keep Postseason Dream Alive Despite Inexplicably Reversed Call

The Nuggets beat the Trail Blazers tonight, 88-82, to hold onto a fighting chance for a postseason berth. The win allowed Denver to remain tied with Minnesota for the eighth and final spot in the Western Conference, who they’ll play on Wednesday for their only remaining regular-season game.

But tonight’s game was close, and a fourth-quarter call reversal made it even more so. With Denver up by three points and 53 seconds remaining, Portland’s Jusuf Nurkic appeared to knock the ball out of bounds away from Denver’s Nikola Jokic. After several minutes of review, however, that call was overturned—meaning that the ball went to Portland instead, even though replay doesn’t seem to show Jokic managing to touch the ball after Nurkic did. At the very least, the various angles provided here don’t seem to provide the incontrovertible certainty needed to reverse a call:

The Nuggets managed to hang on from there, fouling Nurkic after the clock started back up and quickly getting the ball back after the big man missed one of his two free throws.

This leaves seven teams bunched within two games of one another, jostling for positioning and competing for six spots. The next two days should be fun as hell.