Game 6 - 2002 - Western Conference Finals

[FrostKing]

“Sacramento had the best team in the league,” former NBA referee Tim Donaghy wrote in an email interview about the series. “But the referees/league didn’t allow the better team to win.”

[lefty]

To be fair, the Lakers got robbed by the refs in the last minutes of game 5

[lefty]

Also, WTF was Divac thinking at the end of game 4 ?

[Ghazi]

:lol yesterday's NBA

[benefactor]

Fantastic topic...one that should have been explored long ago. Will share with family, friends and all other humans I come in contact with.

[Killakobe81]

“Sacramento had the best team in the league,” former NBA referee Tim Donaghy wrote in an email interview about the series. “But the referees/league didn’t allow the better team to win.”

Breaking news for you? :lol
All jokes aside when did you start watching hoops?

[Laker_1995]

One of my favorite games of all time

[JohnnyMax]

http://grantland.com/features/2002-western-conference-oral-history-los-angeles-lakers-sacramento-kings/

For all the fuss about officiating in this series, Game 5 never gets mentioned enough. As Christie says now, it’s “a game that kind of goes under the radar.” Even though Webber played another superb game (29 points and 13 rebounds) and Mike Bibby (23 points) came through down the stretch, Shaq (just 32 minutes) battled foul trouble the whole game and eventually fouled out; in a relatively astonishing twist, Shaq attempted only one free throw all night. And Bibby hit a game-winning jumper with 8.2 seconds left in the middle of a controversial series of plays. First, Webber appeared to knock the ball out of bounds, but officials said it deflected off Robert Horry. Then, Webber appeared to truck over Derek Fisher in handing the ball off to Bibby, freeing him for the game-winning look. On the final play, Bobby Jackson made contact on Kobe Bryant’s attempt at a game winner, but no call was made and Sacramento snuck off with a 92-91 win. Divac blew kisses into the crowd after the win. Co-owner Gavin Maloof jumped onto the scorer’s table, pumping his fists. The series had flipped again.


I think people know the series was rigged and automatically think it was for the lakers. The series was refereed unevenly, contact was not called in some games and was called a lot in others. Free throws were given in some games but not in other. It was inconsistent refereeing at its corrupt best. The series was rigged, but overall it wasn't rigged for any team in particular, but for the longevity of the series, which was making $$$ for the league.

when you got a series with teams that are hard matchups for each another due to very different personnel (lakers and kings, heat and dallas) it's always easy to prolong the series by refereeing inconsistently. By refereeing in one style (e.g. physical) over another it's easy to favor a team (e.g. lakers) or a player (e.g. shaq). The other side of the coin applies too, it's easy to freeze a player be refereeing against his weakness (e.g. shaq's offensive fouls). It's how game manipulation and league intervention has been done for decades.

Another classic example is wade's free throws in 2006, they called the game tight and dallas didn't have the personnel to contain wade, as the heat didn't have the personnel to handle dirk, it was called this way in order to maximize the exposure of the two best players in the series, it wasn't a hatched job but a subtle, intellectual way of generating revenue. Heat won and dallas choked, the refs didn't hand the heat a free ring.

[Killakobe81]

As in most games, series or over a course of a season there is bad reffing on BOTH sides.
Only conspiracy I see some legitimacy to is What happened to Mavs vs Dwade.
As hard as Wade drove that series ...sdoes not seem legit that the FT margin could be THAT wide ...


I have seen Laker fans whine about Celts in 1984 and 2008
Kings about 2002
Spurs about the Fisher/Barry no call etc.

None of it makes sense and why watch hoops if you buy in to these anyways?!

Bad refiing is a part of sports.

[Will Hunting]

Trying to label Tim Donaghy as some kind of heroic whistleblower is retarded. He’s the only ref who’s actually been caught rigging games, and he’s trying to make money off of it.

[phxspurfan]

As in most games, series or over a course of a season there is bad reffing on BOTH sides.
Only conspiracy I see some legitimacy to is What happened to Mavs vs Dwade.
As hard as Wade drove that series ...sdoes not seem legit that the FT margin could be THAT wide ...


I have seen Laker fans whine about Celts in 1984 and 2008
Kings about 2002
Spurs about the Fisher/Barry no call etc.

None of it makes sense and why watch hoops if you buy in to these anyways?!

Bad refiing is a part of sports.

Says the fan of a team that hasn't been robbed of anything (at least in the last 30 years) and is about to be gifted even more players by the league (Ariza) so they can make more money off the LA market. And fans of LA can't be mad about getting robbed / reffed out of series against equally large markets (Boston, NYC etc) because everyone knows the NBA survives/thrives off making stars/champions in big markets. Even if it means other stars in other big markets suffer.

[AaronY]

I think people know the series was rigged and automatically think it was for the lakers. The series was refereed unevenly, contact was not called in some games and was called a lot in others. Free throws were given in some games but not in other. It was inconsistent refereeing at its corrupt best. The series was rigged, but overall it wasn't rigged for any team in particular, but for the longevity of the series, which was making $$$ for the league.

when you got a series with teams that are hard matchups for each another due to very different personnel (lakers and kings, heat and dallas) it's always easy to prolong the series by refereeing inconsistently. By refereeing in one style (e.g. physical) over another it's easy to favor a team (e.g. lakers) or a player (e.g. shaq). The other side of the coin applies too, it's easy to freeze a player be refereeing against his weakness (e.g. shaq's offensive fouls). It's how game manipulation and league intervention has been done for decades.

Another classic example is wade's free throws in 2006, they called the game tight and dallas didn't have the personnel to contain wade, as the heat didn't have the personnel to handle dirk, it was called this way in order to maximize the exposure of the two best players in the series, it wasn't a hatched job but a subtle, intellectual way of generating revenue. Heat won and dallas choked, the refs didn't hand the heat a free ring.

Where'd you copypasta that take from?

[Spurtacular]

To be fair, the Lakers got robbed by the refs in the last minutes of game 5

They also gave the 3 at half to Samaki Walker to give the Lakers the glimmer of hope they needed in Gm 4 IIRC....

Also, you're talking one possible missed call vs. the worst officiated game in NBA history if we're being "fair".

[spurraider21]

Where'd you copypasta that take from?
http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12306339&postcount=25

[Spurtacular]

As in most games, series or over a course of a season there is bad reffing on BOTH sides.
Only conspiracy I see some legitimacy to is What happened to Mavs vs Dwade.
As hard as Wade drove that series ...sdoes not seem legit that the FT margin could be THAT wide ...


I have seen Laker fans whine about Celts in 1984 and 2008
Kings about 2002
Spurs about the Fisher/Barry no call etc.

None of it makes sense and why watch hoops if you buy in to these anyways?!

Bad refiing is a part of sports.

Bull shit. Stern got caught fixing Game 6; Celts won that series in 84 5-2 essentially. Stern then went on to fix it so that wouldn't happen again in 85 an 87.

[FrostKing]

Atleast we can all agree on one thing - 2002 Kings would shitstomp the current Warriors. Too much size and depth.

[AaronY]

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12306339&postcount=25
Oh cool..nother classic johnnymax stolen take

[lefty]

They also gave the 3 at half to Samaki Walker to give the Lakers the glimmer of hope they needed in Gm 4 IIRC....

Also, you're talking one possible missed call vs. the worst officiated game in NBA history if we're being "fair".
Ah right, I forgot the Samaki 3 in game 4
Shouldn’t have counted

But regarding the end of game 5, there were multiple bad calls against L.A tbh



Still, :lmao at Kobe for ignoring a wide open Horry :lmao

[lefty]

Bull shit. Stern got caught fixing Game 6; Celts won that series in 84 5-2 essentially. Stern then went on to fix it so that wouldn't happen again in 85 an 87.
True
Stern even said so before game 6
At least Bird had the cojones to call him out

[Spurtacular]

True
Stern even said so before game 6
At least Bird had the cojones to call him out

The fine-happy Stern didn't do shit either. He knew he was caught.

[baseline bum]

I was going for the Lakers at the time since I wanted it to be the Spurs to end their run, but going back and watching that game is rough. The Lakers were the better team and deserved their win in the series but those Kings were pretty fucking fun to watch.

[therealtruth]

The Kings had more than enough chances. All those missed free throws and airballs in crunch time in game 7 cost them.

[lefty]

Adelman was a pretty good coach but bringing back Peja so late in the series, when Hedo was playing so well was very retarded

[Chris]

Iverson knew it was rigged. He should have rang.

R6Su-wpCjvo

This ref is straight out of Goodfellas :lol

[FrostKing]

Breaking news for you? :lol
All jokes aside when did you start watching hoops?
https://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0905/top.covers.90s/images/006273895.jpg

[YoungSuperTeam]

The Kings had more than enough chances. All those missed free throws and airballs in crunch time in game 7 cost them.

I've heard this take a lot over the years. It's shortsighted and lazy IMO.

When 2 teams are as equally matched as those 2 were, when one gets extra chances they don't deserve, eventually they will capitalize. Think USSR over USA in the 1972 Olympics. How many chances were the Soviets given to score on the final play? You could say that team USA also had more than enough chances to win in hindsight. But as things played out, they shouldn't have had to play that final possession and should have won regardless of other things they didn't do right.

If that Samaki Walker half court shot wasn't counted in GM4, the Kings would have been up 3 games to 1 and may have never had to play a game 7. Things surely would have played out differently with the Kings up 3-1, but suppose for a moment they were almost the same except that you give the Lakers the calls that went against them in Game 5 and the calls that went against the Kings in Game 6 --- the Kings win in 6. And nobody's talking about FT's or airballs.

The Lakers really only have Game 5 as an argument when the Kings have both Game 4 and Game 6. Much larger mountain to climb and overcome.

[therealtruth]

I've heard this take a lot over the years. It's shortsighted and lazy IMO.

When 2 teams are as equally matched as those 2 were, when one gets extra chances they don't deserve, eventually they will capitalize. Think USSR over USA in the 1972 Olympics. How many chances were the Soviets given to score on the final play? You could say that team USA also had more than enough chances to win in hindsight. But as things played out, they shouldn't have had to play that final possession and should have won regardless of other things they didn't do right.

If that Samaki Walker half court shot wasn't counted in GM4, the Kings would have been up 3 games to 1 and may have never had to play a game 7. Things surely would have played out differently with the Kings up 3-1, but suppose for a moment they were almost the same except that you give the Lakers the calls that went against them in Game 5 and the calls that went against the Kings in Game 6 --- the Kings win in 6. And nobody's talking about FT's or airballs.

The Lakers really only have Game 5 as an argument when the Kings have both Game 4 and Game 6. Much larger mountain to climb and overcome.

Even game 4 was self-inflicted with Vlade passing the ball to Horry. He should have tried to tap the ball to a teammate or out of bounds.

[Killakobe81]

Says the fan of a team that hasn't been robbed of anything (at least in the last 30 years) and is about to be gifted even more players by the league (Ariza) so they can make more money off the LA market. And fans of LA can't be mad about getting robbed / reffed out of series against equally large markets (Boston, NYC etc) because everyone knows the NBA survives/thrives off making stars/champions in big markets. Even if it means other stars in other big markets suffer.

Like I said Lakers fans bitch about 2004 2008 1984 etc big city or not... I don't. I have reffed (soccer) at a high level and Hoops on HS level... There are bad refs of course but conspiracy is bull shitvor why let Spurs get 5 "chips especially when the shitty ratings started following?
SPURS win despite the conspiracy, right?
Get te fuck out of here with that fake moon landing type bull shit

[Killakobe81]

Bull shit. Stern got caught fixing Game 6; Celts won that series in 84 5-2 essentially. Stern then went on to fix it so that wouldn't happen again in 85 an 87.

That proves what?
I never said I agree just that fans bitch whenever they feel cheated on even Laker fans.
Lakers were better team in 1984 but Celts played harder and had the best player so they won. I don't blame the refs

[phxspurfan]

Iverson knew it was rigged. He should have rang.

R6Su-wpCjvo

This ref is straight out of Goodfellas :lol

I think that’s Bennett Salvatore

[Spurtacular]

Iverson... should have rang.



No, but I'd say he was better than Wanna-Be Jordan on the Lakers.

[Laker_1995]

No, but I'd say he was better than Wanna-Be Jordan on the Lakers.

go to bed nigga lol

[Spurtacular]

go to bed nigga lol

Switch Kobe with Iverson, how many less rings do the Lakers have?

[Chris]

No, but I'd say he was better than Wanna-Be Jordan on the Lakers.

Watch this:

d_0qDl3AzI0

[Spurtacular]

Watch this:

d_0qDl3AzI0

We get it; you're an Iverson fanboy. None of this belongs in the discussion of 06 Dallas or 02 Sac, tbh.