Watch: Referee causes strange delay in Lakers’ loss to Spurs
Midway through the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ visit to San Antonio to play the Spurs on Wednesday night, the game inexplicably halted with 5:09 left on the clock.
Apparently, there was some confusion regarding available timeouts and television advertising, as described by referee Bill Kennedy in a clip that was obviously not intended to air on the ESPN broadcast.
Kennedy explains to coaches Mike D’Antoni and Gregg Popovich he’s “stalling. I’m stalling for commercial time.”
Apparently, Kennedy was correct the network had only cued up 20 seconds worth of advertising, not enough for a full timeout. What he didn’t realize is the network was back live and was ready to go after 20 seconds.
In other vaguely related news, Dwight Howard noted recently Kennedy has more than a passing resemblance to actor/writer/director Robert Townsend, from “Hollywood Shuffle” and “The Five Heartbeats.”
Whether that’s accurate is in the eye of the beholder.
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Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EricPincus.
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