
The officiating: I hate that I even have to bring this up again...but it was pretty bawful and pretty much everybody's talking about it. (Heck, Kobe was asked about it during his postgame press conference.) It wasn’t quite as bawful as American Idol winner Lee DeWyze's rendition of the national anthem, but, I mean, 58 personal fouls? On his live blog of the game, ESPN's Bill Simmons said: "That was the rare game where both fan bases will complain about the refs afterwards." It's true. There were phantom fouls, make-up calls, nonsense whistles, and one bizarre late-game review that went against the Lakers when it seemingly shouldn't have.
Seriously, how do you blow a review? The only possible defense I can come up with is that we don't know exactly what the refs were seeing on their monitor. Their footage may not have been as clean or provided as many angles as what ABC was showing the television audience. Plus, if you're an NFL fan and understand the "100 percent conclusive evidence" rule, it makes at least a little sense...but only a very little.
There was one telling sequence in which Ray Allen won an Oscar, er, drew Kobe's fourth foul on a flop, then got tagged himself when Derek Fisher flopped on the other end. The only thing missing was the banjo music. Later, Rajon Rondo stole the ball from Kobe and fell out of bounds, only he flailed enough to draw Kobe's fifth. Still later, Kobe earned free throws when (I’m assuming) a single molecule from Ray Allen collided with some random air molecules between him and Kobe. Oh, and let's not forget that there was plenty of contact on many of L.A.'s playoff record 14 blocked shots, but Big Baby was called for a foul on a totally clean block of an Andrew Bynum dunk attempt.
This wasn't even a case of "tightly called versus loosely called" -- it was tight the whole way -- it was more a case of too many calls period, many of which made no real sense. Unless David Stern wants to kill the flow of the games and render the Finals somewhat unwatchable. If that’s the case, then mission misery accomplished.
By the by, can people please stop justifying the FTA discrepancy by stating (incorrectly) that the C's were shooting threes. Here are some numbers:
Boston:
Field Goal Selection
Layups: 12-33
Jumpers: 22-48
Dunks: 2-2
Scoring Breakdown
FGs: 36-84
3FG: 11-17
FT: 20-26
L.A.
Field Goal Selection
Layups: 6-11
Jumpers: 19-53
Dunks: 4-4
Scoring Breakdown
FGs: 29-70
3FG: 4-21
FT: 31-41
That's right: Lakers took more threes and more jumpers overall despite all the foul shots. And Boston took it to the rack enough to finish with two dunks and 33 layup attempts...the latter of which they hit only 12.
Speaking of numbers:
Thought this was interesting:
Finals-
Game 1: 56 total fouls (26 LA/28 BOS)
Game 2: 58 fouls (29 each)
Reg. Season (two meetings)-
Jan. 31(LA win): 40 fouls (21 LA/19 Bos)
Feb. 18 (Bos win): 38 fouls (18 LA/20 Bos)
Comparing two games, we've seen a 70% increase in foul calling in the Finals compared to the regular season.
As always, I'm just sayin'.