Refs manufacture calls, but are they fixing the outcome? Uh, no
LOS ANGELES -- God help us all, it happened again. For the third consecutive game in the NBA Finals, the officials played an inordinately large role.
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| Six minutes into Game 4, K.G. receives two fouls. (Getty Images) |
And then Game 4 started Thursday night, and I'll be damned, but the referees manipulated this playoff game in favor of the Los Angeles Lakers.
OK, not really. But if you want to believe in conspiracy theories -- and specifically, if you want to believe in this one -- well, there you go. Get yourself a tape of the first quarter of Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals. Every call in the opening minutes, which is to say every call that mattered until the Lakers crumbled in the second half of a 97-91 loss, went in favor of the Lakers. The non-calls went their way, too.
By the time the first quarter ended, the Lakers had shot 15 free throws to two for Boston and had a whopping 35-14 lead on the scoreboard. It was like a mini-version of Game 2, which saw Boston shoot 38 free throws compared to 10 for the Lakers in an easy Celtics win. And it was a near-repeat of Game 3, which saw the Lakers own a 14-2 edge in free throws to take control of the first quarter.
The first four fouls of Game 4 were called on Boston, including two on Kevin Garnett, sending him to the bench. Six minutes were gone. So was Garnett. And the Lakers still hadn't been whistled for a foul.
But it wasn't as if the Lakers weren't fouling, because in one very obvious instance, they were. Barely two minutes into the game, Garnett had the ball in his hands as the Lakers' Kobe Bryant ran past. Bryant clawed at the ball, in the process getting tangled up with Garnett to the point that Garnett lost control.
How obvious was Bryant's foul on Garnett? Put it this way. It was more obvious than Lakers guard Derek Fisher's foul on San Antonio's Brent Barry in the final seconds of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, when Barry pump-faked and Fisher landed on him and three officials swallowed their whistles.
Bryant-on-Garnett was that obvious.
Boston coach Doc Rivers lost his mind, of course, and 12 seconds later was whistled for a technical foul.
Shortly thereafter, though, a strange thing started to happen. The calls began to even out. And they began to even out in a hurry. After calling the first four fouls on Boston, the officials called the next three on the Lakers.
Three fouls in 21 seconds, to be exact.
All three calls were dubious at best, including the call that started the flurry, a defensive foul away from the ball on Fisher, away from the eyes of the crowd and the media. It was the perfect foul. How can anybody dispute what nobody saw?
