That was a foul!
Shame on the officiating crew of Joey Crawford, Josh Tivin and Derrick Collins for swallowing their whistles on the final play of last night’s Miami-Indiana game when Paul George was obviously fouled by LeBron James as he went up for a tying 3-point attempt in the final seconds of the Heat’s 97-94 victory.
The NBA has a practice, only a few years old, of admitting its officiating mistakes through a news release. The person in the league office now responsible for acknowledging those errors is Kiki Vandeweghe.
But checking the inbox this morning, there is no mea culpa. Why not?
We won’t get a good all-Eastern Conference game again until March, when the Pacers and Heat meet for the third time. So that’s 3 months for the conspiracy theorists to spout off — unless the NBA muzzles them all today by admitting the Pacers were wronged.
Not that they would have won, but at least they’d have had a fair shot at sending the game to overtime. And after a terribly officiated game (LeBron James’ second foul in the first quarter, and Roy Hibbert’s third in the second quarter were particularly horrible), the viewing public is owed an apology.
Will the NBA man up and deliver one? If they have any guts, the answer will be yes. We’ll keep checking the inbox, but no, we won’t be holding our breath in anticipation.
And that is a shame, because everyone deserved better last night after a game with true playoff-like intensity arrived a week before Christmas.
Kiki?
They didnt call it bc Crawford messes up this year and gave George a ticky-tack call against the Knicks. That wasnt a foul against the Knicks..he knew he shouldnt have called it..hence he ate this whistle here on a play which def. was a foul. He did not want to decide another Pacers game.
Chris, how long have you been watching the NBA? Fouls on the final play? What?
I felt it was karma for that awful flop George made throwing his head back seconds after maybe possibly being brushed by Wade. Do the refs watch any replays at half time or get told anything at half time?
Or for that matter the phantom foul he got shooting 3 in the playoffs last year in the final seconds.
I really hope George doesn’t continue down this flopping path. I don’t expect anything better from Lance Stevenson, but George should be better than these cartoonish flops.
It was a pretty badly reffed game on the whole, but it was a damn exciting game- best I’ve seen so far this year I reckon, in a regular season that’s seemed a bit flat thanks to D-Rose’s injury and all the underwhelming teams (I really need to watch more Blazers games).