Rick Carlisle Called the Last Play Targeting. The NBA’s Own Report Says the No-Call Was Correct.
Rick Carlisle did not wait to be asked. He walked into his postgame press conference in Dallas on Monday night and opened with a question of his own: “Is anyone going to ask about the last play?”
Then he spent several minutes explaining why his Indiana Pacers had been robbed. The next day the NBA’s Last Two Minute report arrived and told him he was wrong.
What Happened
Mavericks 125, Pacers 122, at American Airlines Center. Dallas led by three with 3.7 seconds left when Andrew Nembhard fired a long inbounds pass toward Pascal Siakam near the far elbow. Caleb Martin jumped the lane, got a hand on the ball, and collided with Siakam hard enough that both men ended up on the floor. No whistle. Walter Clayton Jr. scooped up the loose ball as the clock hit zero.
Indiana was in the bonus. A foul there meant two free throws with the game still alive.
“It’s a football-caliber collision. It’s clearly a foul,” Carlisle said. “That whistle needs to blow. It almost looks like targeting a defenseless player in a football game.” He said he was “at a loss for what was being looked at” and floated the idea that Dallas “may have been intentionally fouling.” Asked what the officials told him when he confronted them afterward, he said he would not get into it.
The League Disagreed
The Last Two Minute report ruled it a correct no-call. The league’s reading is that Martin “deflects the ball away from Siakam” and that the contact afterward was incidental. A defender who gets to the ball first is allowed to run through the receiver on the way.
The report did flag one incorrect call inside the final two minutes, and it went against Indiana. A foul whistled on Aaron Nesmith against Kyrie Irving with roughly 18 seconds left should not have been called, because Nesmith “grasps, and immediately releases” the jersey. Irving made both free throws.
Carlisle was right that the officiating cost his team points. He picked the wrong play, and the one he built a press conference around is the one the league says the crew got right.
He Has Been Here Before
The NBA fined Carlisle $25,000 in April 2015 after a playoff loss to Houston and $35,000 in May 2024 for criticizing officials and implying bias against small markets following Game 2 against the Knicks. In February 2026 the league fined the Pacers $100,000 over tanking and then said publicly that Carlisle’s description of that process was “inaccurate.” No fine has been announced for Monday.
The Real Problem Is the Standings
Indiana is 3-8. Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals, missed all of last season, returned for the opener, played four games in six days averaging 21.8 points and 9.5 assists, then strained his left hamstring in late October. Carlisle said on November 7 that Haliburton is making progress. There is still no return date.
Siakam was excellent on Monday: 29 points, nine rebounds, eight assists, with 26 of those points in the first half. Nembhard had 12 assists. It did not matter, because Cooper Flagg scored 43 on 16-of-25 shooting and Irving added 35 in his first back-to-back since tearing his ACL.
Carlisle coached Dallas for 13 seasons and won the franchise its only championship in 2011. On Monday he lost to that team, now run by first-year NBA head coach Dusty May, because a 19-year-old dropped 43 on him. The no-call is the easier thing to talk about.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
