« Reply #3319 on: July 16, 2021, 10:05:41 AM »
The ref's explanation for not fouling Booker out:
“During live play, I saw a clean sweep of the ball and thought it was a no call,” referee James Capers said. “However, after seeing the replay, I now realize that I missed Booker’s right arm around the waist of Holiday, and it should have been a defensive foul on the play.”
Lol. I can understand an amateur ref in a rec league missing something that blatant, maybe. An NBA ref in the Finals, though? Lol.
Especially when there's 3 of them

All ball. Lol.
There was one more blatant no-call on Booker a bit later than this one.
I think we all choose to overlook the elephant in the room. Here's a genuine question: Do you think the NBA is rigged? Cause that's the only logical inference based on your first post.
Personally speaking, I believe plenty of games are rigged. Can't prove it obviously. I believe the lottery is rigged as well. In my mind, there's no doubt about that. I also think the NBA allows its star players to get off the hook with PED use. The whole situation bothers me a lot, but at the end of the day I still watch the games. I genuinely don't want to care anymore, but for some stupid reason I do. Go figure.
Booker was pretty much on point in game 4. If any sort of fix was in, it was to help keep the Bucks in the series. One way to try to cool off a player is to get him in foul trouble and take away his aggression. Booker and Crowder each had fouls, while Holiday and Middleton each played 43 minutes and only had one foul each. As far as the call in question, I was shocked Booker even attempted to play any sort of defense there, but seemingly got all ball on the block. Booker's right hand didn't do enough in my opinion to warrant a foul call.
Also, I mentioned here as soon as it happened. The refs missed a blatant dribbling violation on Holiday on the fast break, after the Chris Paul crossover turnover with under a minute left in the game.
I disagree with that call. That was as clear a foul as you will ever see. That said, they missed plenty of calls the other way as well including the pretty obvious one where Giannis didn't lift his foot up on the in bound.
Given there were terrible calls both ways, it is hard to say it was rigged. The refs just weren't very good. That said, I did like that they seemed to let them play a bit more down the stretch. Made the end of the game much more enjoyable to watch.

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