The Lakers pulled off a nail-biting 127-125 win against the Nuggets on Saturday, March 14, at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena. Subsequently, the NBA released its official ‘Last Two Minutes Report’ for the matchup, which essentially admitted the Lakers should not have won the game.
The Lakers pulled off a win in overtime, but the game should not have ideally gone into overtime at all. The Nuggets were ahead by three points with 9.9 seconds left in the fourth quarter, when the Lakers ran a side-inbounds play for Austin Reaves.
Before Reaves could get into an upward shooting motion, Spencer Jones stripped the ball from his hands cleanly. However, the Lakers guard was awarded a chance to get two crucial points with the shot clock stopped, making it a one-point game.
In the report, the NBA admitted that Jones had stripped Reaves cleanly and the Lakers should not have been awarded the free throws. Thus, at a critical juncture in the game, the Lakers should not have been given the two shots to come closer to completing a comeback.
The NBA L2M report says that this should not have been a foul on Spencer Jones pic.twitter.com/WbgqpQjacs
— Law Murray 🕯️ (@LawMurrayTheNU) March 15, 2026
Who knows, Reaves could have missed his shot, and the Nuggets securing the rebound would have ended the game in regulation time. Or if Reaves made his shot, the Nuggets would have over eight seconds to run a final play for the win.
Instead, this erroneous decision allowed the Lakers to make it a free-throw game down the stretch, eventually forcing overtime after Reaves intentionally missed his second free throw to make a two-point shot on the rebound in a subsequent play that ended up tying the nail-biting fixture at the buzzer.
AUSTIN REAVES GRABS THE BOARD OFF HIS OWN MISSED FREE THROW AND TIES THE GAME 😲
WE ARE GOING TO OT! pic.twitter.com/aPZAJkEpxM
— NBA (@NBA) March 15, 2026
If the officials had not made this mistake, the Nuggets would have likely won the game. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, these reports cannot affect the outcome of a game.
Consequently, Reaves ended the night with 32 points, seven rebounds, six assists, one steal, and one block, while shooting 12-21 from the field (57.1 FG%) and 3-8 from beyond the arc (37.5 FG%).
This win was crucial for the Lakers, who improved to 42-65, allowing them to stay third in the West, ahead of the Rockets (41-25). With just 15 games left in the regular season, every single win is critical in determining the middle order of the Western Conference.
After the top two seeds in the West, the third to seventh seeds are separated by a margin of just three games. Therefore, every win is pivotal in the eventual seeding and playoff matchups the Lakers could be looking at.
Meanwhile, the Nuggets fell to 41-27 and are now fifth in the West, just 1.5 games behind the Lakers. They lost the regular season series 1-2 to the Lakers.
If the Nuggets fall to sixth (behind the Timberwolves, who are also currently 41-27) and the Lakers maintain the third seed in the West, we could see a playoff series between these two teams. Denver would surely look to bounce back and get their revenge if that happens.
