Raptors admit shot clock malfunction was their fault

What a difference a day makes.

The Toronto Raptors have reversed course and are now accepting responsibility for the shot clock malfunction that took place during Game 1 of their playoff series against the Brooklyn Nets. 

On Sunday, team officials publicly blamed an ESPN technician for the outage that forced public address announcer Herbie Kuhn to count down possessions over the live microphone. 

On Monday, officials said a further internal probe led them to admit the problem was with the arena itself and its infrastructure, rather than the American cable TV network.

“We appreciate the public correction and acknowledgement that we did not cause the problem and remain focused on documenting the daily excitement of the NBA Playoffs,” ESPN vice-president of communications Josh Krulewitz said.

The issue arose about halfway through the third quarter of Saturday's game.

The initial claim by Raptors officials was that an ESPN technician fried the connection by shifting one electrical outlet to another in order to fix an internal problem.

Upon further review, the main problem wasn't the shot clock failing but rather that a backup was running on a similar power source, the team said.

The Raptors say the problem has been solved and a backup plan is in place.

Game 2 of the series will be shown on NBA TV in the United States, while Game 3 in Brooklyn will air on ESPN2.