I hate the Lakers and the Spurs. So I don't care who wins. Just so long as they don't win it all.
But it was a foul on Derek Fisher last night, plain and simple. The whole, "You can't call that at the end of the game" defense is garbage. The other defense is that you can't have refs deciding the outcomes of games. Really? The first 47 minutes is okay to be decided by refs but the last minute is somehow exempt?
I'll follow up this post by TrueHoop by getting a little preachy. Your clergy, your mom, or someone in your life with some authority has likely told you to avoid even the appearance of evil. What was Joey Crawford doing within 2 states of San Antonio last night? If you're not familiar with the Crawford/Duncan fiasco, click here to read up. If you're trying to shed an image of where you're seen as a league that is fixed, whether true or not, how do you let Crawford in the state, let alone ref the game? You're just giving conspiracy theorists and fence-sitters more fuel. If his name comes out of the hat when picking refs, you throw it away and pick again.
The other argument from Barkley and others is that the Lakers out-played the Spurs and giving the Spurs that call would have taken that away. Well, sure it would have. Once again, why does the last minute or so in every NBA game somehow not count? If they come back in the last minute, then it doesn't matter. That's why games are 48 minutes. It's absurd that the last minute is somehow different than the 8:00 mark in the third.Should we just declare the leader at the 1:00 mark the winner?
There were a bunch of no calls and missed calls before then of course. Fisher's shot on the previous possession looked like it hit the rim and that would have given them a new 24 anyway. But it's the last minute of the game, that shouldn't get called either, right?
The Lakers nearly blew that game. They should have wrapped it up relatively easily but stopped playing the game the last couple of minutes. And they got bailed out.