San Antonio Spurs Had 6 Players on Court for Crucial Play vs. Dallas Mavericks

-- Update: Saturday, May 3, 6:37 PM ET --

Per ESPN (h/t CBS Sports), the NBA has admitted to missing the call.

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League spokesman Tim Frank confirmed in an e-mail to ESPN on Saturday that the referee crew of James Capers, Jason Phillips and Zach Zarba missed that the Spurs had six players on the floor.

Section VI, Article E of the official NBA rulebook states, "If the ball is put into play and remains in play with one team having six or more players on the court, a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul will be assessed on the team with too many players."

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-- End of Update -- 

After Dallas Mavericks guard Monta Ellis absurdly threw the ball out of bounds the length of the court with under two seconds remaining, the San Antonio Spurs, trailing 113-111, had a shot to win Game 6 on Friday night and advance to the second round.

They needed to go the length of the floor, and as the Twitterverse quickly recognized, there were six Spurs on the court during the play:

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Spurs had 6 on the floor and got away with it.

— Kenny Dorset (@KDorset) May 3, 2014"

This graphic above, courtesy of SB Nation, shows the infraction quite clearly.

Fortunately, the play did not end up mattering. The Mavs beat the Spurs, 113-111, to force Game 7.

[YouTube, Twitter, SB Nation]