Well, I won't shy away from this stuff. I am sure there are enough Laker fans quaking in their boots to go around.
A general preliminary comment. A fast voyage around the basketball blogs is starting to reap a varied crop. Disgruntled fans of all affiliations are retching up their historic personal beefs for past games, and past series. I haven't seen too much stuff that calls the Celtics into the spotlight other than putative non-calls in the series with the Cavaliers this year (no doubt these are posted by Cleveland fans), and general remonstrations about supposedly dirty fouling but this stuff hearkens back to a time when most teams were much more physical anyway.
Sacramento -vs- Los Angeles 2002. I still have all of these games on tape. I went back and looked and them and I must admit that this was not something that I would probably have ever done of my own free will. I consider this series to be the overall worst officiated series that I have ever seen involving the Lakers, and I have been a Laker fan since 1968.
I went back to see these tapes to refresh my memory about the officiating that occurred.
Game 1, and Game 2 - I just did not see any particular bias and these two games were probably the best called games of this series.
Game 3 - very badly called. Sacramento won this game. They should have won this game anyway, but the margin should have been much closer. So, not a hose job, but the hose job here was avoided only because Sacramento was so far ahead and so the final result can not be contested
Game 4 - I could not discern any particular officiating favoritism. This is the game of the disputable Samaki Walker 3pt shot as the first half was waning. For me that shot should not have been counted and this shot was one of the reasons that the League put in place means of reviewing the shot clock on 3 pt shots (something that we saw fail miserably again this year with the infamous clock malfunction in Game 2 of the Detroit-Orlando series). This game was won by the Lakers and this shot influenced the outcome since the margin was so restricted. We will never know who would have won this game had this shot been disallowed, however, at that time it was a judgment call by the referees to make.
Game 5 - continuing the horrible officating that by now was a hallmark of this sorry excuse for a series (made sorry by the arbitration, not by the teams themselves). I recall at that time that this was a hose job, to our detriment. Los Angeles lost by one point, and Sacramento was gifted by the highly disputable officiating a game they should not have won. Serious doubts exist to this day about whether the Bibby 3 should not have been counted as a 2.
Game 6 - this game is absolutely the worst-officated game that I have seen in my life. The Lakers did not deserve to win this game. That the Kings were hosed is indisputable. I have always considered this game to be the make-up game for the precedent Game 5 hose job. Among so many disputable calls was the elbow chuck by Bryant on Bibby near game end.
Game 7 - on the home court of Sacramento. Having already done too much damage to the credibility of this entire series, the officials returned to the form of the series start and called a good game finally. Sacramento was perhaps slightly favored by the arbitration - after all, at Arco, but they shot an abysmal 15/36 at the free throw line - that won't do it in any game...
I will always have a bad taste in my mouth about the arbitration in this series. My sense is that everything considered, had the series not gone to the seventh game, then the Lakers would have been hosed because of Game 5. Of course, the supporters of the Kings would have preferred to cash-in the ill-gotten gains of Game 5 and forgotten about it while winning Game 6 to win the series. Such is the strange optics brought about by being a fan of any franchise.
One thing is sure, the arbitrations problems in this series did not depend on either of the two franchises involved. These two teams just wanted to play their hearts out and try and win fair and square. That they were not able to do so is certainly due to the atrocious arbitration throughout most of this series.
So, now, we will always have a series that for the Lakers, I am speaking of the objective Laker fans, though we won the series, we will always feel cheated out of the possibility to feel good about it because so many of the final scores were so disputable because of the officiating. I certainly understand the feeling on the part of the Sacramento fans that they were jobbed, as we would have felt if they had won Game 6.
The point is that I hope never to assist such an incredible botch job on the part of the officials ever again. However, this may be a pipe dream unless the League actually does revamp the vetting procedures now in place for the referees (that certainly seem to be disheartingly inadequate!), and instruct the referees to call all games following the rule book instead of this subtle favoritism that so often seems to be injected into how games are called.
As a Sportsmen, not as a Laker fan, I want this crap cleaned up. I want all fans of all fanbases to be able to have their legitimate aspirations for the team of their heart to be met, that is, that all teams are judged even-handedly on the basketball court. Credibility must be re-established in arbitration, otherwise the game Basketball will certainly suffer. Speaking as a fan, and speaking to the League, clean this stuff up, do not leave us feeling cheated, and do not allow us to believe that when our favorite teams win that they have not been allowed to do so fair-and-square!!!!
Topic: Donaghy says the league fixed 2002 playoff series (Read 18729 times)