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While I think that JR has a point, I don't believe that the call--which was a technical foul--was incorrect, it was simply that to whom the calling official charged that penalty was wrong.
What if I changed the situation to the official incorrectly charging a foul to 32 instead of 33 during the 4th quarter for whatever reason, perhaps he doesn't clearly see the number (perhaps 32 isn't even in the game at the time), and then two minutes later when 32 fouls again the official is informed that it is his fifth foul? If it can be proven that 32 didn't commit the first foul, maybe due to the scorer having a record of who was in the game at the time, is anyone going to insist that he remain stuck with it?
Or in this particular case, once it is realized that 32 was mistakenly charged with a personal foul which he shouldn't have been are people still going to DQ him?
To me, in both cases, it is not the actual foul call which is wrong as a rules infraction was committed and recognized by an official, but the assessment of that penalty was improper in that it was charged to the wrong offender.
While we certainly can't erase FTs, points, or a possession after a certain time period, I believe that we can correct the recipient of a foul once we have definite knowledge that it was incorrectly attached to a person. Some may cringe at this, but I believe that is a simple principle of basic fairness and while it could fall under 2-3 or the whole process of bookkeeping, I would offer that the rules support is more basic. The rules tell us very clearly to whom a foul gets charged. As officials we have a duty to adhere to that. If we screw up and don't, then I believe that we must do what we can under the rules address our mistake. Exactly what is allowable in this area is obviously up for debate, but I'm not going to knowingly DQ a player who should rightly be eligible to participate.
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