By Jeremy Walsh
The first few days of the NBA playoffs have featured entertaining games with exhilarating finishes – every lower seed either scared or actually beat its higher seed.
These dramatic games are great for the league (ratings, ticket sales, growth, etc.), but one negative trend reared its head in several of the games: inconsistent, poor late-game officiating.
As a result, NBA players, coaches, staff and fans are left contemplating about correct calls that should have been and game outcomes that could have been.
Let”s look at a few examples of the unfortunate refereeing:
In Game 1 between the Portland Trail Blazers and Dallas Mavericks, there were considerable foul-call and free-throw disparities in favor of the home team Mavericks in the fourth quarter. Considering the single-digit final score, those points and calls played a factor.
Two plays left bad tastes in the mouths of New York fans after the back-and-forth Game 1 between the Knicks and Boston Celtics.
A weak, but acceptable offensive foul call against New York”s Carmelo Anthony preceded a questionable no-call on a clear hip-check by Boston”s Kevin Garnett that freed teammate Ray Allen for the game-winner.
With 1:05 remaining in Sunday”s Game 1 matchup of the Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder, referees awarded Kendrick Perkins a go-ahead tip-in with the ball clearly in the cylinder. The non-offensive goaltending call gave the Thunder a late-game, one-point lead, from which the Nuggets couldn”t recover.
Monday night”s Game 2 between the Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls was well officiated for nearly 46 minutes. Unfortunately, the final few minutes featured inconsistent calls against both teams.
Two weak defensive foul calls on Chicago led to Indiana free-throw attempts, but a poor last-minute non-call on a clear offensive foul by the Bulls completely halted the Pacers” comeback.
On Monday, the NBA acknowledged that referees incorrectly awarded the two points to the Thunder for Perkins”s illegal tip-in; the same day, the league also announced that Portland head coach Nate McMillan was fined $35,000 for comments deemed critical of officials.
What should be understood is that none of those calls (or missed calls) cost teams a chance to win the games, but they certainly did affect the outcomes.
As a result, participants in those games should be allowed to comment about such calls after the games without fear of league sanction.
Now the argument supporting league fines for comments critical of officiating seems to be protecting the integrity of the game. But defending the sanctity of officiating should not include stifling active public dialogue about specific games or calls.
In fact, conversation, commentary and criticism breed integrity. Bad calls will happen and human error is part of the game, but correcting and preventing such errors in the future should also be part of the game.
The difficult irony is that the NBA really should be the last league promoting officiating integrity or denouncing public criticism.
This is a league not even four years removed from the Tim Donaghy (former referee) betting scandal. More importantly, basketball as a sport is markedly vulnerable to point-shaving or the appearance of referee-influenced final outcomes.
So fines like the one McMillan received don”t seem just or right, but petty, cowardly and hypocritical.
Of course, there should be limitations on allowable comments or actions.
In-game questioning or referee-mocking should not be tolerated and should be met with technical fouls (as refs are quick to do).
Post-game rants on specific officials, overstated claims of one”s team getting poor calls all season, or unfounded accusations of intentional wrongdoing by officials should also not be allowed. And no players or coaches should be permitted to say judgment calls cost their team the game.
But the league should let the players and coaches freely comment about single-game trends or disparities, as well as how those calls affected the team”s momentum and the game”s outcome.
Professional referees (not just in the NBA, but in all sports leagues) shouldn”t be beyond reproach. Players should be allowed to judge referees” actions just like referees have the ability to judge players” actions (i.e., making judgment calls).
When officials make inexplicably poor calls like the refs in the Nuggets-Thunder Game 1, they should be confronted by the media exactly like players who make boneheaded late-game decisions.
It remains to be seen whether these poor early-series calls will affect this year”s Round 1 outcomes. And judging from recent league history, we”ll never get to hear whether they truly did.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
