UPDATE, 1:45 p.m. Monday: Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle addressed the controversial replay decision against the Blazers after Monday’s practice, stating the process could be improved.

Rick Carlisle chose his words carefully when I asked if anything about the process of last night’s coach’s challenge could be improved, specifically to @mcuban’s point about fans being in the dark about why the call was reversed. pic.twitter.com/7Nq4KdZeqD — Brad Townsend (@townbrad) October 28, 2019

ORIGINAL STORY:

A Sunday night of wild scoring swings became a white-knuckle fourth quarter and then a dramatic and controversial finish.

As Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle put it after Portland’s 121-119 victory at American Airlines Center, “this game came down to one stop and one score and one challenge.”

None of which went the Mavericks’ way. The challenge was a coach’s challenge by Portland’s Terry Stotts — a wise use on his part of a rule the NBA enacted this season, similar to the NFL’s coach’s challenge.

The result confused and irked the Mavericks, especially owner Mark Cuban.

How can a judgement that body contact was “deemed marginal” be considered clear and conclusive ? If it were clear and conclusive nothing would have to be deemed , correct ? https://t.co/RV8017gXA9 — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) October 28, 2019

Dallas trailed 120-119 when Luka Doncic missed a step-back 3-pointer with 11 seconds left. Dorian Finney-Smith rebounded for Dallas and was fouled by Damian Lillard.

At least that was the call on the floor. But Stotts challenged the call. The referees determined that Lillard got all ball. By rule, since the play technically was dead when the whistle blew and neither team had possession, a center-court jump ball was called.

Having 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis on the court figured to be a godsend for Dallas. Porzingis got the tip, but he tapped the basketball too hard toward Portland’s end of the court, where Kent Bazemore gathered the ball just before it went out of bounds and got fouled by Jalen Brunson with 5.5 seconds left.

Bazemore made the first free throw and missed the second. Dallas, with no timeouts left, could only get off a Tim Hardaway Jr. 31-footer, which missed.

“I really didn’t think it wasn’t a foul,” Finney-Smith said. “But it is what it is. They overturned it, and we’ve got to deal with it.

“I mean, he fouled me on the rebound. [Then] he slapped down, he had to come across my arm. And he also had his right hand on my hip. They’re the same calls they [the Blazers] get. I just probably should have sold it more.”

Tweeted Cuban: "I’m a fan of the nba challenge rule , but if a play is overturned and they don’t show the replay that justifies overturning a call along with an explanation then it’s going to have real problems. From the angles we saw in arena it looked like a clean strip but body contact first.”

Then a follow tweet: “Fans in our arena have no idea why the foul was overturned. That’s not the way this should work.”

On Carlisle’s 60th birthday, the previously unbeaten Mavericks jumped out to a 19-point first-half lead. They got 32 points from Porzingis and a 29-point, 12-rebound, nine-assist performance from Doncic.

But the Blazers rallied behind CJ McCollum (35 points) and Damian Lillard, the latter of whom scored 26 of his 28 points in the second half. Ultimately, the fact that Dallas shot 32 of 41 on free throws and the Blazers shot 22 of 26 figured significantly in the outcome.

Dallas (2-1) was looking to start 3-0 for the first time since the 2004-05 season, when it started 4-0.

“We were just a little too volatile, it comes down to that,” Carlisle said.

Not surprisingly, the sequence that led to the coach’s challenge and overturned call drew opposing points of view and opinions.

Said Lillard: “It was funny because in the preseason we just kept joking because he [Stotts] came to me first and was like, ‘Dame, if you don’t think it was a foul, you’re going to lose my trust early if we get one and lose a timeout.’

“He kind of broke it down to me because he knew I would probably be the one. Tonight, I looked up, there wasn’t a lot of time left. I was like, ‘This will be the perfect time, and I knew I hit all ball.’

“When I hit it, I heard all ball. I told him ... ‘Coach, he grabbed the jersey, I hit all ball.’ He was like, ‘We only got one timeout.’ I was like, ‘I hit all ball.’ After the game when I was walking through the tunnel, I was like, ‘Do you trust me now? I didn’t lie to you.’”

Said Stotts: “Damian put me over the top. If we lose the challenge, they are on the line and we are down one, but he was pretty adamant, so I trusted him.”

Speaking to a pool reporter after the game, referee Courtney Kirkland explained the play and the call this way:

“Once Portland challenged the play and we were able to go and look at replay, we were able to have clear, conclusive evidence that Damian Lillard legally deflected the ball from Dorian Finney-Smith.

“Once the ball was legally deflected, the ball was loose when the whistle blew, which led to an inadvertent whistle. Therefore, we ended up having a jump ball at center circle between any two players.”

But as Cuban said in his tweet, fans had no idea why the call was overturned. No explanation was provided to fans other than the fact the call was reversed.

The explanation didn’t come until the pool reporter quote was distributed nearly an hour after the game.

The game is long over now, but certainly not the debate about what happened, and whether a new rule resulted in a correct call and game result.