Maybe the one good thing Shaquille O'Neal has done this NBA season was something he didn't do.
Thanks to an NBA ruling that found an official scorer was incorrect in ruling the Miami Heat center had fouled out of a December 19th game with the Atlanta Hawks, Shaq will get a do-over.
Everyone else will, too.
In an extraordinarily unusual move, the NBA announced Friday that the Hawks and Heat would replay that game's final 51.9 seconds before the teams' next meeting March 8th in Atlanta.
The game's scorer, provided, per NBA rules, by Atlanta, erroneously credited a foul by Miami's Udonis Haslem to O'Neal with 3:24 remaining in the fourth quarter. When O'Neal later picked up a foul with 51.9 seconds left on the clock in overtime, it was recorded as his sixth, resulting in his disqualification.
The Heat filed a protest, and for the mistake, which he termed "grossly negligent," Commissioner David Stern fined the Hawks $50,000 and ordered the fifth replay in league history and first since 1982.
In the meantime, the Hawks, who eventually won the contest 117-111, and the Heat will have their respective win and loss removed from league standings.
All stats accumulated in the game will not be official until completion of the game in March.
2 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Lisa-Marie about 1 year ago
What will the League do now that Shaq is in the West? Is David Stern going to fly shaq down for the 51.9 seconds? Its pointless now to replay that final minute. It was pointless from the start.
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Andy Hutchins about 1 year ago
I honestly don't know. This was one of the Association's worst decisions in recent memory; hopefully, people forget about this en route to what looks like a particularly spicy end of season.
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