CHARLOTTE – There’s a trophy awarded to the NBA Defensive Player of the Year that has Giannis Antetokounmpo’s name on it, and in the Milwaukee Bucks“The last two games, the 7-footer made late-game plays that could have been a highlight for such an distinction.

Wednesday evening he blocked an inbound alley-oop attempt against Detroit guard Ron Holland II with one second remaining.

SATURDAYAntetokounmpo passed to lightning-fast 6-foot-7 guard Charlotte LaMelo Ball and bottled him to the point where he fell and lost his dribble with 7.3 seconds remaining.

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But in both cases, a whistle ended each play. In both cases, Antetokounmpo was whistled for a foul.

Remarkably, in both cases the NBA acknowledged that the whistles were blown in error. The league releases a final two-minute report for each game reviewing all calls and non-calls, and on Thursday it said that “Any contact that follows is accidental.” The foul is incorrect, but officials trigger a replay review to determine the timing of the foul.

The Bucks ended up beating the Pistons in overtime on Wednesday after Holland II missed two potential game-winning free throws.

Milwaukee lost Saturday, 115-114, as Ball hit both of his free throws — and Antetokounmpo missed his own potential game-winning shot. And they didn’t have to wait a day to discover that a mistake had been made.

After the game, team leader Curtis Blair acknowledged that the leg-to-leg contact they initially asked of Antetokounmpo was incorrect.

“In postgame review, when we looked at the play, there was no illegal contact on the play,” Blair said.

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He added that if the Bucks had had a timeout and challenge at that time, the call would have been overturned. The Bucks had used their final challenge on a block/charge call against forward Taurean Prince with 1:07 remaining.

Rivers met with the media ahead of Blair’s pool report with the Charlotte Observer was finished, and he launched into a long speech:

“I thought the final play was the ref’s call. Now it’s back-to-back games where, in the final play, an incorrect call was made. LaMelo Ball fell. He just fell. No one was near him. Slipped by itself. We find the ball, the game is over. So in consecutive games we received an incorrect decision against us.

“We got lucky in Detroit, the kid missed two free throws. Tonight, it was LaMelo Ball who made the free throws. And there was clearly no foul. When you watch the video , the referee who called the foul was blocked by one of our players. You can’t guess at the end of a match Guys, both teams played too hard.

“The free throws tonight were 21-11 in their favor in the game Giannis played. Giannis made a free throw. Go back three times when Giannis dunk, the whole team fouled him. All l The team fouled him! And it’s a no call. Giannis goes to the basket, because he’s powerful, and they hit him in the arm and they can hit him in the face and because he’s strong. continues, he is not credited for the contact he made.

“Giannis was in the paint – you were at the game, right? – he was in the paint all night. Someone explain to me how Giannis gets a free throw? But more importantly, through everything this, we played through it all, it comes until two teams play hard We get the change we wanted We wanted Giannis on LaMelo Ball, our biggest defender in the league and we call a phantom foul. as if these errors couldn’t happen.

“I’d probably be frustrated if it was just tonight, but now it’s happening to us two nights in a row.”

When asked if he received an explanation for the call, Rivers said, “He didn’t have an explanation. I think you should go to the referees, do the pool report and get an explanation. I want to ask first, how did he see it? Unless he can see (the Taurus Prince), he won’t be able to see him. And it wasn’t a mistake. So this is what bothers us. We’re playing hard, we knocked out Dame (Lillard), we knocked out Khris Middleton, we have guys (injured), we’re playing really well, we’re playing together, and you just can’t do what you did at home. end of the game with this call.

“If you’re not 100% sure, even if you’ve seen a contact but you’re not sure, you can’t make it happen. But the only thing you can’t do is guess. And it was a complete assumption and it hurt us. And that’s just not fair.

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Clearly frustrated not only by these calls, but also by the fact that Antetokounmpo only shot one free throw, Rivers added: “Giannis is guarded with both hands – there are all the rules that are broken when he’s guarded and we won’t call it, but then we get these little ticking fouls at the end of a game is decisive Both plays – which is crazy to me – both plays Giannis was involved. Here’s the rule: If you don’t call Giannis a foul, you can’t call him a foul, right? So it’s really frustrating.

Giannis Antetokounmpo met with the media after the pool report was completed and was informed of officials’ admission of an erroneous call.

“I’ve been in the league since, this is my 12^th year, rule No. 1: don’t give your money away,” he said. “And rule #2, don’t forget rule #1. So I’m not going to comment on that. THANKS.”

But he liked the fact that Rivers defended him so vehemently.

“I appreciate it,” Antetokounmpo said. “I really like him and he supports me, I support him.”

This article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: NBA admits poor decision on Giannis at end of Bucks’ loss to Hornets