Wasn’t this a vote to TABLE the bill? If so, they would’ve been voting NO to NOT table the bill. My understanding is that NOT tabling the bill would make it subject to cloture, meaning it could have bee filibustered.
As a point of parliamentary procedure, what was tabled was the house amendment to a senate bill. You are correct that tabling that amendment avoids debate and cloture. Reid has offered a senate amendment, and then introduced a cloture motion to limit the time for debate on the senate amendment. Cloture motions always take 60 votes, McConnell offered to take the cloture vote tonight, and Reid said "no" he wanted a simple majority vote. The count on (and reasonably so, I think) public ignorance.
Anyway, if the notion to table had been rejected, then the house amendment would be amenable to debate, or other motions such as to postpone, etc.