What was one of LeBron's best games (and the rest of the team's worst games) and a good game in general turned into (and I can use language that Mike Brown can't) a shit show. This is going to be a short post, but I have heard a lot of opinions about the end to this game and I watched the entire game and have decided that one of two takes is acceptable.
1) No Calls View
This one is obvious. Neither was a foul, game over. If the game ended like that, I would have said, "It looked like Granger hip checked LeBron!" and then forgot about it the next day.
2) The Mike Brown Take
This one is a little crazy of course. Mike freaked out which is not that normal for him. He is usually the guy who doesn't blame the refs to a point that even bothers me, but I think this whole year, refs have been telling them new rules they made up to make sure LeBron doesn't dominate the game like he should and Mike was fed up.
But back to the calls. The first one was questionable. If I'm rooting for the Pacers, I'm saying that you can't make that call at the end of a game. That said, if I were playing pick up ball and in a bad mood, I call that foul. I could never imagine making the Granger call. Granger did hip check LeBron and I think that is called a foul earlier in the game without much contention. Not to mention, giving a mediocre free throw shooter a chance to TIE the game on a QUESTIONABLE call is not as bad as ending the game on a horrible call. Objectively though, I don't love the Granger foul call either.
The second call on the other hand, was not a foul. I don't know how else to put it. Granger didn't get fouled. LeBron did not foul Granger. There was no foul on the play.
So that is the view: First call, eeehhhh. Second call, No.
Whether you think the first call should have been made or not, or whether you're rooting for the Pacers, Cavs or nobody, we can all agree that Joey Crawford should be fired.
With 24 hours to think about the terrible ending to that game last night I think I am more upset now than I was when it happened. I was too in shock to comprehend the terrible refereeing. LeBron elevated into the air on a straight path and was knocked off of it by Danny Granger with a hip check and it was a foul. Now there are some that say at the end of the game you have to let that go but I have never understood why the end of the game should be officiated differently than any other part.
ReplyDeleteWhen Granger went up to get his lob pass, the ball was thrown short and LeBron actually had better position to get the ball than Granger. There is actually no chance that it was a foul.
Now to my actual beef. The state of officiating in the NBA is absolutely terrible. There are dozens of blatantly missed calls/no calls per game. A few years ago the Tim Donaghy scandal rocked the NBA and you know the worst thing that came out of it for me? In an attempt to assure fans that Donaghy didn't impact very many games, David Stern stated that Donaghy was one of the best refs in the league in making correct calls. Just think about this for a second. Let it really sink in. A ref that was purposefully fixing games was one of the BEST in the league. I don't think I can say much more to further my point. In the sports league where officiating matters the most it is by far the worst.
What about the NHL, Bowl. Officiating is CRUCIAL. Not to mention World Cup soccer. Also, Crawford and I went fiddy-fiddy on INDY straight at +330, so in y'alls faces.
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