Referee Bill Kennedy admits ‘I’m stalling right now’ as Lakers-Spurs were supposed to have timeout

NBA fans watching the Los Angeles Lakers-San Antonio Spurs game on Wednesday caught a glimpse of a referee admitting on TV that he was stalling for a commercial.

With 5:09 left in the game and a break in the action after Mike D’Antoni called timeout, ESPN ran a promo for the second game of its double-header thinking it was a 20-second timeout. The teams lined up for the Spurs to inbound the ball, but the referees stopped the action from proceeding. The issue is whether D’Antoni would be charged for a full or 20-second timeout given that he didn’t have a 20 left. TV went to a 20-second timeout — which was the promo they ran — and the referees were trying to figure out what to do.

The result was a bunch of players and coaches standing around for a minute while matters were sorted out.

“What I’m doing right now is I’m stalling,” Kennedy told Mike D’Antoni and Gregg Popovich. “I’m stalling for commercial time right now.”

Announcer Jon Barry responded to Kennedy by saying he wasn’t fooling anybody, and then the game cut away to commercial.

There was no harm done, and about all that happened was viewers saw the game stalled for a minute while they were supposed to be seeing commercials. Still a pretty funny blunder.

The Spurs ended up winning the game 108-105 to hand the Lakers their fifth loss in a row.

Video via The Big Lead