Media MonsterNBAVideo

Watch Referee Billy Kennedy Explain To D’Antoni And Popovich That He’s Stalling For A TV Timeout

There are a lot of intricacies involved in running a telecast of a sporting event, especially one on national television. Making sure the broadcast runs smoothly is a job for many people, among them the game’s referees. So here’s referee Billy Kennedy talking to Mike D’Antoni and Gregg Popovich during the Lakers-Spurs game. From a distance, it looked like they were talking about something at least marginally important, but…

So in layman’s terms, D’Antoni called a timeout, thinking it would be of the 20-second variety. He had already used it in the fourth quarter, but the broadcast team had already prepared for a 20-second timeout. Since they don’t typically jump to commercial during such timeouts (but do for full ones, which this particular one was), Kennedy could do nothing but schmooze and make small talk with coaches.

The Lakers made this game much closer than it should have been, but the Spurs eventually won, 108-105. For the first time since April 2011, the Lakers dropped their fifth game in a row. If they could only have gotten their timeouts straight.

Follow Jordan Rabinowitz