AFF's Doublethink

It doesn’t “consistently favor” any team. The refs aren’t trying to make sure one team wins or the other team loses. The league isn’t attempting to ensure that big market teams like L.A. and, uh, Cleveland make it into the finals. Refs in the NBA are simply terrible at their jobs. They’re more interested in injecting themselves into the flow of the game and hamming it up for the crowd/cameras* than calling a good game. Just watch the last half-quarter of last night’s Lakers-Nuggets game for proof. The Sports Guy gets it right today:

Just to mix it up, I will say something nice about my archenemies [the Lakers]. They blew Game 2 thanks to some typically brutal officiating in a league that’s slowly becoming defined by its typically brutal officiating. This is such a good series, such a perfect matchup between two evenly matched teams — and even better, a fiercely competitive Nuggets group that’s forcing the finesse Lakers to get their hands dirty, or else — and just when the bodies were banging and Game 2 was turning into PLAYOFF BASKETBALL in all caps, the whistles started coming with about five minutes to play. God forbid two teams just played their asses off, brought out the best of each other and decided the outcomes themselves. Nobody would want to see that.

*Seriously, why do refs think it’s appropriate to make a huge deal out of the call they’re making by gesticulating wildly and waving their arms around like madmen? I used to be a soccer ref. You make the call, move down the field. What you don’t do is inject yourself into the action (with the one exception of breaking up a fistfight). People aren’t there to see you, you pompous assholes. Let them play the game and get on with it.