https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28261492/rockets-protest-james-harden-missed-dunk-denied
In its appeal, Houston had contested that Harden's dunk not being counted as a basket was a misapplication of rules resulting in an incorrect score and not a judgment call by officials.
In its ruling, the NBA agreed with the Rockets' contention that referees misapplied the rules. However, commissioner Adam Silver determined that the Rockets had sufficient time to overcome the error "during the remainder of the fourth quarter and two subsequent overtime periods and thus the extraordinary remedy of granting a game protest was not warranted."
The league did announce that it has disciplined all three referees from the game for misapplying the coach's challenge rule.
Good to see the league disciplined the refs. Also, liked the logic that the Rockets had plenty of time to overcome the ref's decision so they would not warrant the requested protest.
I understand why the request denied, but I absolutely disagree with the reasoning. Our officials made an egregious mistake that cost you the game, but you should have sucked a little bit less down the stretch in order to overcome it.
Patriots fans got a taste of this yesterday, except they were never (even close to being) in control of the game. It's basically just a 'too bad, so sad' situation in both cases where the refs easily had the ability to remedy their errors.