Lakers News: NBA Referees Apologize For Missed Jayson Tatum Foul

Your Los Angeles Lakers didn't take too kindly to a pretty obvious end-of-regulation foul being patently ignored by the on-hand officiating crew of Saturday night's eventual 125-121 loss to the Boston Celtics. It represented one of many recent close defeats LA has incurred recently, several of which suffered from murky late-game refereeing.

The fallout from the decision to not assess a foul call on All-Star Celtics power forward Jayson Tatum when he hit the arm of All-Star LA power forward LeBron James was swift after the game. James himself called out the referees. 

Here's the moment, which happened at the end of regulation with the score tied at 105-105 and the clocking ticking to zero:

With LA head coach Darvin Ham having already needed to burn a coach's challenge to contest another questionable referee decision earlier in the evening, no foul was assessed, and thus no free throws were awarded to James. The game moved on to overtime, where the Celtics eventually won out over Los Angeles.

The game officials' crew chief Eric Lewis, in something of an unprecedented step, swiftly admitted that his team was wrong that same night, ahead of an eventual Last Two Minute Report that also verified that upon being released Sunday.

Now, the league's officials have released a supplemental public mea culpa, via their official Twitter account:

One wonders how referees will handle their whistles as the Lakers make their way towards the All-Star break this season, with their sights set on inching closer to a .500 record on the year (they're currently 23-27).