Team Possession

[cvscooby]

Looking for some help from you experts. Here is the situation;

Team A is shooting a free throw and miss, both team A and B fight for the rebound. The ball is tipped around the key, and players fall to the ground with no one gaining possession. A whistle is blown and a three second call is made against team A. When the official is questioned about no possession, he explained that team A had “team possession” and was in the key for over three seconds. Therefore the call.

Can someone help with this, this one got me. It seemed like the team possession rule was improperly used. Please correct me if I’m wrong, and where it is I should be looking in the rule book for this.

Thanks All.