After watching game 4 of the LA-San Antonio series, I thought it was time for me to address the issue of officiating in the playoffs, or just officiating in general. I'll start off by saying that Brent Barry was indeed fouled on that last second play by the Spurs. I'm a huge Lakers fan and even I felt a bit cheated after that play. I'm all for my team winning, but I don't want to hear any nonsense about how we only won because a foul was (or in this case, was not) called. With that said, the foul on Barry was not a shooting foul, so he would not have iced the game with his three free throws. Don't remember if LA was over the foul limit though, so it might have been two shots.
Another interesting referee-related issue regarding the Lakers-Spurs game 4. One of the refs in this game was veteran official, Joe Crawford. For those of you who don't remember, Crawford was suspended last season by the NBA after he and Tim Duncan got into a little argument. Nothing physical, but Crawford must have done something completely uncalled for for him to get suspended. The league is always quick to side with the refs so I found that one rather comical. But anyways, the issue being discussed prior to the game was whether or not Crawford should have been allowed to officiate the Spurs series. Even if there is no resentment or hate towards Duncan, there can always be that small hint of subjectiveness if a call is close. I don't know who botched that last call in game 4, but it would make my day if I found out it was Crawford.
There were also a few controversial calls in game five of the Detroit-Boston series. I believe a flagrant 1 was called against the Celtics in what I believe was a good playoff foul. We all know that the intent of the foul was to prevent the basket and there was no act of recklessness involved in the foul. It was a clean foul... there was nothing malicious about it. This is the playoffs and with the series tied at 2 apiece, you've got to expect that players are going to play hard to win the game. Later in the game, a similar foul was made and no flagrant was called. Inconsistent? Probably; but that was the right call to make in my opinion.
Overall, officiating in the playoffs have not been all that great. I'm not going to bother going into details. Instead, I'll offer some suggestions. When officials have really bad games, they should be punished. A suspension or something would suffice. Just to let them know that game-changing mistakes will not be tolerated. Currently, these guys fear nothing; they need something to keep them on their toes. Officials are supposed to be invisible; they should not impact the outcome of a game. They're supposed to make the calls and enforce the rules to the best of their abilities. Sometimes the refs let their egos get in the way and refuse to admit their mistakes when consulting with fellow officials to determine the call. With that said, these guys are pros and are doing their job better than any of us could do it. I criticize and offer up and opinion, but the bottom line is, they are human and humans make mistakes. We have the benefit of replay and slow motion when watching the game on tv. Refs don't have that when they're making the call on the court. But hopefully, the officiating improves in time for the Finals; we don't want to see a repeat of the '06 series featuring Miami and Dallas.
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