National Basketball Association

Cuban files protest to NBA

Published Dec. 20, 2009 12:00 a.m. ET

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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban officially filed a protest with the NBA office on Sunday over what he termed "misapplication of the rules" by the officiating crew during Friday night's overtime loss to the Houston Rockets.

Cuban said the officials were wrong to eject Dallas center Erick Dampier in the overtime. Dampier was called for throwing an elbow that led to his ejection, and Cuban wants the final 1:01 of the overtime replayed with Houston in front, 110-104.

The Mavericks went on to lose 116-108.

Game officials went to a video review of the play on which Dampier was ruled to have thrown the elbow at Houston's Aaron Brooks, who received a technical on the same play for a flagrant foul-1 on Dampier.

Officials upheld their call after the review and ejected Dampier for his second technical of the game.

Cuban had 48 hours after the game to file the protest and send a $10,000 fee to the league. NBA officials have five days to rule on the protest.

The officiating crew was Ken Mauer, Brian Forte and John Goble.

"There are several circumstances where you can assign a technical for an elbow, and we said that's fine, we don't have a problem with that....But when you look at that video, there's no question that wasn't an elbow with intention to harm, there wasn't even an elbow thrown," Cuban said. "By any reasonable standard, that change should have been made. I'm sure the ref didn't know he could make that change, which is a misapplication of the rules."

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