LkrFan
02-23-2013, 07:50 AM
As the game progressed the referee crew of Pat Fraher, Mark Lindsay, and Mike Callahan made strange call after strange call and then flat out started blowing the game. Remember how earlier in the year the league issued a post-game statement saying that a charge drawn by Ronnie Price--a judgment call that was fairly close on the hardest decision to make in the sport--was erroneous? If they're going to do that for this game they'll need to employ Saturday Night Live's Fox News Sketch errata scroll.
We got a little bit of the "Kobe throwing himself into a defender on the drive and getting the whistle while the Blazers don't get a call on legit contact" stuff, but you have to let that go. It's home cooking, the star system, stuff that's been going on since the Showtime days and really peaked in the Shaq era. For a little bit I wondered if the refs were in a Y2K time warp, maybe remembering the old Lakers who approached 60 wins every year instead of looking at the actual Old Lakers who move like molasses and owned a 26-29 record heading into this game. But no matter how frustrating that is, you let it go.
Phantom calls on LaMarcus Aldridge--Portland's All-Star, most bankable and best player--bringing him to 5 fouls and forcing him to sit go beyond the pale. It's like they had a target on him all night. Aldridge drew his first technical foul in living memory arguing in frustration. But even that doesn't compare to the horror of the last 2:35 of the game. At no time during that stretch did the margin exceed 4 points...the same margin the game would finish with. Most of the time the edge was 2, a single bucket.
With the Blazers down 2 and 2:35 left Dwight Howard raked Matthews across the arm on a shot for what would have been his 5th foul and Wesley's chance to even the game at the foul line. There was no call. Matthews got his first technical in recent memory protesting. The Lakers missed the tech free throw, Lillard made a great layup to tie the game, then Steve Nash burned him with a pull-up jumper in the lane to put the Lakers up 2 again.
With 51 seconds remaining Nicolas Batum drove the baseline left and Metta World Peace took a stab at the ball from the side. It flew out of bounds. The ref awarded the ball to the Blazers in what I assume was one of those all-too-common non-calls where there's a foul but the official doesn't want to call it so he just gives the offended team possession. The problem with that here: with so little time remaining on the clock a replay to determine who actually knocked the ball out is all but mandatory. One can only imagine the embarrassment of the officials as they reviewed the tape and saw that the ball actually left Batum's hands as it flew out of bounds. World Peace never touched it...because World Peace hit nothing but Batum's dribbling arm and torso. Again...MWP came up under Batum's arm, hit his arm hard to prevent the dribble, and the ball sprayed out of bounds as a result. However in these situations the referees can only rule on out-of-bounds possession. They cannot retroactively call a foul. Since Batum clearly touched the ball last, as the defender never touched it, they awarded the ball to the Lakers.
Now...it was bad that the refs blew the call and got trapped in a no-win instant replay situation. I understand that after the fact they could not call the foul that should have been called and that they couldn't have awarded the ball to the Blazers when the replay showed only Batum touched it. But I lost all respect for the refs when the camera caught Batum explaining what had happened to an official after the replay ruling was finished. Batum duplicated how World Peace had hit him and dislodged the ball. I could have lived with a quick nod. I could have lived with an explanation that the refs had missed the initial call. I could have lived with the ref quickly saying, "We can't review that." But after having seen the replay--about which there can be no mistake and in which there is no room for interpretation because it wasn't even close...the play went exactly as Batum described--the ref simply shot a semi-disgusted looked at Batum and shook his head "No" as if they had made the right call all along. No...you...didn't.
LINK (http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/2/23/4020344/portland-trail-blazers-vs-los-angeles-lakers-kobe-bryant-40)
:downspin:
We got a little bit of the "Kobe throwing himself into a defender on the drive and getting the whistle while the Blazers don't get a call on legit contact" stuff, but you have to let that go. It's home cooking, the star system, stuff that's been going on since the Showtime days and really peaked in the Shaq era. For a little bit I wondered if the refs were in a Y2K time warp, maybe remembering the old Lakers who approached 60 wins every year instead of looking at the actual Old Lakers who move like molasses and owned a 26-29 record heading into this game. But no matter how frustrating that is, you let it go.
Phantom calls on LaMarcus Aldridge--Portland's All-Star, most bankable and best player--bringing him to 5 fouls and forcing him to sit go beyond the pale. It's like they had a target on him all night. Aldridge drew his first technical foul in living memory arguing in frustration. But even that doesn't compare to the horror of the last 2:35 of the game. At no time during that stretch did the margin exceed 4 points...the same margin the game would finish with. Most of the time the edge was 2, a single bucket.
With the Blazers down 2 and 2:35 left Dwight Howard raked Matthews across the arm on a shot for what would have been his 5th foul and Wesley's chance to even the game at the foul line. There was no call. Matthews got his first technical in recent memory protesting. The Lakers missed the tech free throw, Lillard made a great layup to tie the game, then Steve Nash burned him with a pull-up jumper in the lane to put the Lakers up 2 again.
With 51 seconds remaining Nicolas Batum drove the baseline left and Metta World Peace took a stab at the ball from the side. It flew out of bounds. The ref awarded the ball to the Blazers in what I assume was one of those all-too-common non-calls where there's a foul but the official doesn't want to call it so he just gives the offended team possession. The problem with that here: with so little time remaining on the clock a replay to determine who actually knocked the ball out is all but mandatory. One can only imagine the embarrassment of the officials as they reviewed the tape and saw that the ball actually left Batum's hands as it flew out of bounds. World Peace never touched it...because World Peace hit nothing but Batum's dribbling arm and torso. Again...MWP came up under Batum's arm, hit his arm hard to prevent the dribble, and the ball sprayed out of bounds as a result. However in these situations the referees can only rule on out-of-bounds possession. They cannot retroactively call a foul. Since Batum clearly touched the ball last, as the defender never touched it, they awarded the ball to the Lakers.
Now...it was bad that the refs blew the call and got trapped in a no-win instant replay situation. I understand that after the fact they could not call the foul that should have been called and that they couldn't have awarded the ball to the Blazers when the replay showed only Batum touched it. But I lost all respect for the refs when the camera caught Batum explaining what had happened to an official after the replay ruling was finished. Batum duplicated how World Peace had hit him and dislodged the ball. I could have lived with a quick nod. I could have lived with an explanation that the refs had missed the initial call. I could have lived with the ref quickly saying, "We can't review that." But after having seen the replay--about which there can be no mistake and in which there is no room for interpretation because it wasn't even close...the play went exactly as Batum described--the ref simply shot a semi-disgusted looked at Batum and shook his head "No" as if they had made the right call all along. No...you...didn't.
LINK (http://www.blazersedge.com/2013/2/23/4020344/portland-trail-blazers-vs-los-angeles-lakers-kobe-bryant-40)
:downspin: