The Nuggets’ win over the Celtics in a showdown between the NBA’s Eastern and Western conference leaders was overshadowed by a bent rim that caused a delay of about 35 minutes.
Sunday night’s game between the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets was a matchup of the NBA’s Eastern and Western conference leaders, as well as top MVP contenders Jayson Tatum and Nikola Jokic. But the showdown was overshadowed by a bent rim that caused a delay of about 35 minutes.
Boston’s Robert Williams III seemed to be the culprit, after he hung on the rim following a thunderous dunk with 8:06 left in the fourth quarter. Soon after, the rim was leaning a bit to the left.
After a timeout with 6:43 left and the Nuggets leading 110-97, officials summoned the arena crew to level the rim. It took six workers, two ladders, a level, phone calls and eventually a crew member taking the rim off the backboard before it was fixed — which Celtics guard Jaylen Brown disputed.
«There was no communication. They spent all that time trying to fix it, but when we came back, it still looked like it wasn’t even level, in my opinion. So we just wasted all that time,» Brown said after Boston’s 123-111 loss.
