Neither fixed nor incompetent. That is LeBron James making an offensive move, if anyone is within 20 feet with their arms up, they will be called for a foul.

Greg Willard is Mark Wunderlich's illegitimate child.

His wife faked the pregnancy.

The real mother was Sarah Palin...

...Tensky made me do it.

I'm glad the refs had to go right over to the monitor to see if LeBron's feet were behind the line.
In short they had to determine if he didn't deserve 3 freethrows or if he only didn't deserve 2 freethrows.

So they had to have seen the bad call in the replay. The thought that this could have decided the game by putting Dwight out and giving Cleveland 3 extra points is troubling.
As I recall Cleveland missed a shot to cut it to 3 later so it really could have been a problem.

The key for Orlando is to go up by 40 on King James as they did during a regular season game. That way when David Stern calls the refs in, they can say, "What could we do?"

FIXED! It is so obvious now!

Incompetence . . . sheer, staggering incompetence.

Yeah -- and YOU ALL knew it was a bad call immediately... just after you saw it in slow motion. Go ahead, make the call WHEN IT HAPPENS and see how smart you are.

Yeah -- and YOU ALL knew it was a bad call immediately... just after you saw it in slow motion. Go ahead, make the call WHEN IT HAPPENS and see how smart you are.

The ref didn't make the call when it happened.

He made it almost two seconds later, after Howard had blocked the shot, caught the ball, and started to make for the basket.

1-2 seconds might not seem like much, but it's clear the ref waited, *and* it's clear that he didn't make the call based on what he saw, but on an assumption: "the ball was arrested in flight, so it must be a foul".

see how smart you are.

I don't get paid a lot of money to get those calls right. If I did, I'd get them right, particularly at key moments in big games. Particularly when I'm standing a few feet away looking right at the play. But the NBA refs are screwing these up with alarming frequency.

Oh yeah, and Tim Donaghy was an isolated incident. Sure.

Goaltending is the bane of referees, and I can see why they err fairly regularly, but this block was obvious in contrast. Referees are human, but when they miss a clear call they should be suspended from further playoff work. The replay should have clarified that Orlando deserved the ball without the undeserved free throws for LeBron.

and there's something even more interesting going on in the NBA with increasing frequency: calling fouls *after the game*:
http://www.nba.com/2009/playoffs2009/05/26/nuggets.jones.trip.ap/index.html

a quote from the article:
Karl said the league is toeing a thin line, however, by imposing a foul that wasn't whistled in the game. "I don't think the precedent is good. If Bennett Salvatore saw that play would he have called a flagrant? I think he would have called a foul, but I don't think he would have called a flagrant," Karl said. "I think the mood of the game is being overridden by the mood of the office. I'm not sure that's the right precedent."

which begs the question: if you can make foul calls like *this* after game, why can't you correct *bad* calls, like the one Jack linked to? if your argument is "doesn't affect the game outcome"--neither does this one on Jones.

"...if you can make foul calls like *this* after game, why can't you correct *bad* calls, like the one Jack linked to?"

But where do you draw the line? Do you give each team a finite number of challenges per half, ala the NFL? If you start reviewing all questionable calls in an NBA game, those games are going to get mighty long.

But where do you draw the line? Do you give each team a finite number of challenges per half, ala the NFL? If you start reviewing all questionable calls in an NBA game, those games are going to get mighty long.

it's a good question. I'd start by saying "no fouls called or reviewed outside the game, unless circumstances are extreme(severe injury, highly unusual circumstances, etc.)"

then, I'd call the games consistently, and add a couple of video reviews. David Stern has said he publicly supports reviews, but that owners are uniformly against it. wonder why?

*then*: I'd eliminate the three point line. it's the single worst idea in modern basketball. an absurd number of games are determined by teams who simply recruit and maintain three-point specialists. some teams can attribute as much as a third (or more) of their regular season wins to three-point bombs in the last sixty seconds of the game.

The NBA's goal is to get Kobe and LeBron to the finals. That's been the story line for most of the season. It serves the league's marketing efforts for future years. If you're a fan of either the Lakers of Cavs, don't worry. If Denver or Orlando wins four games in the current series, the league will probably extend it to a best of nine (or eleven, thirteen, etc....).

As much as I'd like to see a Kobe/LeBron match up in the finals, the odds are becoming very slim. If it's a refs conspiracy, last nights game refuted that theory.

When is someone going to do something about this fix in the NBA! I'm a laker fan, but there were so many bad calls... again!

The officiating as been horrible. I know there are some calls that are close but the refs are "blowing" easy calls. I swear this makes me wonder about the NBA. I mean look at the Magic/Cavs games and tell me there is something wrong with the officiating. Dwight Howard gets called for the the slightest touch of any Cavs player but it's not called that way for him. Dwight has to get hammered before a foul is called. I'm not even going to comment on the Lebron James situation. The refs are making bad calls late in the game that can effect the out come. There should be some type of system where refs are fined or reprimanded after blowing calls because there needs to be some type of accountability.

If any call so far epitomized lousy, inconsistent, bizarre refereeing, it's LeBron James throwing himself headlong (literally) at the Orlando player--and getting the call.

And the referee had a clear, unobstructed, close up view from less than 10 feet away. It wasn't a tough call. It's about as easy as they get.

oh, and: for an international perspective on that call (and the T on Howard), look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdNchVS-c5M