Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau at Tuesday's morning shootaround before a game against Indiana agreed with what the NBA deemed during its Two-Minute Report issued Monday afternoon:
"I made a mistake," he said.
The report determined the Thunder were done wrong not once, but twice in Sunday's final five seconds of a 115-113 buzzer-beating victory at OKC.
The league said Thibodeau signaled for a timeout his team didn't have after OKC's Carmelo Anthony's three put the Thunder ahead by a point with 5.1 seconds left.
Then it said Karl-Anthony Towns' screen on Paul George that freed teammate Andrew Wiggins for the game-winning, banked shot at the buzzer was illegal because Towns' stance was too wide.
Thibodeau said he knew his team was out of timeouts, having told them so during a timeout with nine seconds left just after Towns' floating runner had given the Wolves a 112-110 lead.
"Yeah, we talked about it. I made a mistake," Thibodeau said. "I started to call it, but we had talked about that in the timeout before with nine (seconds) to go. So we talked about not giving up the three -- because you're up two -- and then what we wanted to run. We work on stuff, because if you're down timeouts, what are you going to run to get the ball up the floor?"
In a new season when the NBA has reduced the number of timeouts late in games so it speeds the pace, Thibodeau called his signal made to a referee looking the other way instinctual. He quickly then began gesturing for his players to inbound the ball and push it up the floor.