On Friday, a basketball match between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Detroit Pistons featured a crucial last-second shot in the third period.
A contest featuring two prominent Eastern Conference squads, ultimately won by the Pistons with a score of 122-119, experienced an interruption when the arena’s signal horn at Little Caesars Arena blared incessantly for over twelve minutes. The disruption commenced when the game paused with 7 minutes and 24 seconds remaining in the period, occurring during an ESPN broadcast interview with Cavaliers’ standout Donovan Mitchell.
Mitchell quickly inquired, “Can you all hear that horn?” The unanimous response indicated that indeed, the horn was audible to all present.
Over the ensuing minutes, stadium personnel made frantic attempts to silence the persistent noise, while numerous spectators in the audience struggled to maintain composure. The pause in competition extended sufficiently for both participating teams to return to the playing surface and commence warm-up shots, all the while enduring the ceaseless sound.
Ultimately, the attempts to quiet the horn proved fruitful, eliciting a loud cheer of appreciation from the assembled spectators.
However, the issue was not entirely resolved. Given the primary horn’s malfunction, the scorekeeping officials temporarily employed a handheld air horn for signaling various game instances.
This pause preceded an unpredictable conclusion, where the Pistons were trailing by three points with under ten seconds remaining in standard play. The Cavaliers chose to deliberately commit a foul to avoid the possibility of a game-equalizing shot at the buzzer, yet they fumbled the attempt, granting Pistons guard Daniss Jenkins three foul shots.
Jenkins successfully converted all three attempts, leading the Pistons to secure a victory in the extra period, even though their key player Cade Cunningham was disqualified for accumulating too many fouls in the final quarter.
