News you already know: Joey Crawford hates the Spurs

Two seconds were left, the Lakers were ahead by two points but it was Spurs ball. The ball was inbounded at half court to a sprinting Brent Barry. The 36-year old guard was hot so he gets the go ahead to shoot.

Derek Fisher, scourge of the Spurs last time the teams met in ‘04, hounds Barry during the possession. The Spur dribbles a couple of steps closer to the arc, makes a pump fake, and creates strong contact as he takes the shot.

The time expires while the ball is in the air, but it doesn’t even hit the ring because of the contact. If you know your basketball, you should expect a whistle and three free throws to be made. There’s just one problem:

Joey Crawford, one of the referees during the game, doesn’t think there was a foul.

This is the same Joey Crawford who got in trouble for ejecting Tim Duncan while the NBA superstar was sitting on the bench, laughing about a bad call that Crawford himself had made during a Spurs game against the Dallas Mavericks last April 15, 2007.

This is the same Joey Crawford who was suspended indefinitely by the NBA for his quarrel with Duncan, because aside from the questionable call, Crawford challenged Duncan to a fight.

This is the same Joey Crawford who became practically jobless because of the Duncan controversy, but was fortunate enough to be reinstated by NBA commissioner David Stern.

This is the same Joey Crawford that gave Gregg Popovich a technical foul during game 5 against New Orleans because the Spurs coach pressed his case regarding a misapplied delay-of-game call by Crawford, and the NBA determined that Popovich’s interpretation of the rule is correct.

Do you expect us to believe Joey Crawford honestly didn’t see a foul during that last shot after his history with the Spurs? We all know that playoff fouls are being committed left and right, but you know as well as I do that we’ve seen fouls getting called for less (cough* Kobe in Staples *cough) throughout the series and throughout the league.

Forget what Black Mamba said in the post-game interview. It was a foul and he knows it. Kobe denies this because a) he’s an opponent, b) to Kobe, he’s the only person in the NBA that deserves calls when somebody touches him, and c) Kobe screwed up in the Lakers’ last two possessions, which is why the Spurs got within two.

Admittedly, the Lakers outplayed the Spurs during the first 47 minutes. The Spurs looked old and tired, while the Lakers seemed to have boundless energy. Popovich was also outcoached by Jackson (which is old news really), thanks to some dubious decisions regarding defensive match-ups and player rotation. Call it youthful naïveté but the Lakers somehow allowed the Spurs to creep in without even knowing it, setting it all up for the drama in the closing seconds.

P.S.:

If this kind of contact should be ignored by referees at the end of the game, then why was Ginobili called for a foul on Nowitzki in the closing seconds of game 7 of the 2006 Western Conference Finals?

Related Posts

• It’s hard to be a basketball fan