TORONTO – The Toronto Raptors have assumed blame for the shot clock debacle.
In the back-and-forth drama of who was responsible for the shot clock malfunctioning during Game 1 of the NBA playoffs between the Raptors and the visiting Brooklyn Nets, a Raptors official said Monday the team has accepted responsibility.
The Raptors originally said a “signal path error” caused the clocks to go out with just under six minutes to go in Toronto’s 94-87 loss to the Nets on Saturday. But the blame shifted to American sports broadcaster ESPN on Sunday, with the explanation that an ESPN employee had plugged into the wrong power source and fried the system.
The club said Monday that upon further investigation, it wasn’t the network’s fault.
“We appreciate the public correction and acknowledgment that we did not cause the problem and remain focused on documenting the daily excitement of the NBA Playoffs,” Josh Krulewitz, vice-president of communications for ESPN, said in a statement.
The shot clock malfunction was a major distraction in Saturday’s game as announcer Herbie Kuhn had to count down from 24 seconds on each possession.
One of the problems was that both the main clocks and the backup clocks were running on the same power source. The damaged cables in the baskets were replaced and tested Sunday, and the primary and backup clocks are no longer using the same power source.
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