Last night was game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Lakers, another epic game between these two clubs. Unfortunately, the NBA had to step in and ruin the game with horrible officiating that undoubtedly cost the Celtics the game. There is not one single person who watched that game that can honestly say that the refs did not have any impact on the game. You might say that the bad calls went both ways – and you’d be correct if you only looked at the first half of the game. You might say that the refs are always making bad calls – and you’d be correct there too. But you cannot honestly say that the second half of this game was even remotely fair.

ABC replayed several bad calls that were clearly wrong that just happened to go in favor of the Lakers. ABC replayed several non-calls that should’ve easily been called, especially since they were being called on the other end. The announcers made several comments about the “obvious calls” that were either missed or clearly the wrong call. These are unbiased parties showing everyone over and over that this was not a fairly officiated game. Again, it does happen all the time, people make mistakes and the refs are people, the refs make bad calls all the time. But the second half of this game does not fall under the “mistakes” category. This was an intentional handout.

I would like to point out that, as a Celtic fan, I did not say anything like this after the game 1 loss. Nor did I blame the refs in the game 3 loss. Up until game 5 things were pretty even (aside from game 2′s 41 – 26 advantage) with the Lakers shooting 119 free throws and the Celtics shooting 108 – an 11-shot difference over 4 games is no big deal. But in game 5, a game that the Celtics barely won, the calls started to turn in favor of the Lakers more openly which resulted in a 26 – 13 advantage in free throws for the Lakers. In game 6 it was the same thing as game 5, just a slight shift toward the Lakers resulting in a 19 – 10 advantage in free throws for the Lakers (not that the Celtics would’ve won game 6 anyway). And finally in game 7 the Lakers were handed a large percentage of their 37 free throws on a silver platter with no good reason for them to be at the line. The difference was a staggering 37 – 17 advantage in favor of the Lakers, most of which came in the second half. The results for the last 3 games… a whopping 82 – 40 advantage for the Lakers?!?!? That is completely ridiculous!!

The bottom line here is that the Lakers did NOT win game 7, the Celtics did NOT lose game 7 – game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals was a handout, a gift to the Lakers from the refs. Anyone who wants to argue this point can go watch the game again, watch it 15 more times and you’ll still come to the same result. Even the most die hard Laker fan will tell you that this game was completely taken over by the refs and in no way was fairly officiated in the second half – resulting in a Lakers “win”.

There’s something going on here and the scandal will present itself in due time. The NBA should launch a full investigation to find out what really motivated these refs, since it’s clearly not a love of the game that is blowing their whistles.