The NBA's Officiating Remains In The Gutter After 4 Separate Important Games Were Impacted By The Refs Last Night

Christian Petersen. Getty Images.

All season, the NBA's officiating has been a problem. I wouldn't exactly say this is new, but it feels like this year it's as bad as its ever been. Refs are getting emotional and can't stop giving out insane techs, they are missing blatant calls at the end of games that impact the results, and if anything things are getting worse and not better.

We've seen players like Fred VanVleet complain about it. We've seen coaches complain about it. Everyone sort of agrees that there's this gigantic problem, and yet here we are on the brink of the playoffs, where these final games mean everything and could very well dictate someone's ability to win a title, and things are going even more off the rails.

In a season filled with brutal moments, last night might have been the worst example of this issue. I'm not just talking about that Mavs play. There were 10 games on the NBA calendar last night, and a total of 4 had legit officiating issues. I'll admit. I haven't been tracking this for every night of the season, but 40% of your games having ref drama doesn't seem like something the NBA should want or even have at this point of the year.

As always, perspective is important. Some of these screw ups don't excuse the losing team from losing in every case. I don't want it to seem like these teams are only losing because of the officials, but when you see it all laid out there's no denying that this problem is getting out of hand.

Mavs vs Warriors

We all saw Mark Cuban rage about what happened at the end of the 3rd quarter of this game.

Sure, it stinks the Mavs lost by 1 point. They also had an entire quarter to play defense. With a 96-93 score after 3 quarters, everything was still on the table for the Mavs despite this issue. The thing is, it was pretty clear the ref signaled for Warriors ball, then issues the Mavs timeout

Now if you want to say the issue is that ref didn't let everyone know whose ball it was or whatever after the fact, then I guess? I think it's fair to suggest that the issue wasn't with "changing" a call, but I guess not communicating it clearly to everyone involved. This has less weight for me compared to the others we'll talk about because the Mavs still had an entire 4th quarter to win this game. They even hit a 3PM right after this, yet their terrible defense gave up a bucket with 2.5 seconds left to end the quarter. Play some defense and this screw up (?) doesn't even matter.

Advertisement

Lakers vs Suns

You know who the NBA wants in the Play In/Playoffs? The Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James. It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure that out. So, in a game they have to win against the Suns, who do they assign? Hm, who is the one who always seems to find himself working these types of games?

Ah yes, Scott Foster. Do we think he made an impact in this game?

Listen, there are things that contribute to FT numbers. Your offensive approach is a good place to start. People always cry that the Suns are a jump shooting team and that's why they don't get FTA. Well, in this game the Suns took more paint FGA (45) to the Lakers (40). When you do something like that, seeing a 46-20 FT difference is a little fishy. This isn't the first time this has happened to the Suns recently, we saw the same thing happen against MIL. Monty Williams pretty much gave the exact same rant

Advertisement

This is a situation that seems to come up way too often. A certain team needs a win, they're at home playing against a team that has a history with a certain official, that official (Scott Foster) is assigned to the game and immediately there's a 46-20 FT difference despite the Suns taking more FGA in the paint. That just doesn't really pass the smell test and why people think there's some fishy business going on with the league at times. It's almost as if they don't care about hiding it, which is an issue.

Knicks vs Heat

The Knicks are having a really good season. Not just by Knicks standards, but by any team in the league standards. While it may be tough for them to catch CLE for the 4 seed (4 games back), they are still absolutely in a fight to hold onto their spot in 5th/6th. They own just a 2 game lead over the Heat for the 7th seed, so last night's game was pretty important. 

You know, the game the Heat won 127-120.

So why am I mentioning this game? Well, this play seemed pretty important

I mean, that's about as blatant a travel as you're going to get. There is simply no debating that Jimmy changes his pivot foot, which you know….you can't do. At that moment, RJ Barret had just hit a big 3PM to bring the score to 123-118. Who knows what happens on the other end if this play is called correctly, but that's not the point. The point is these are plays that in those moments, you cannot miss. Especially in a game between two teams that are fighting with each other for playoff positioning. 

Sure, the L2M report today will probably declare this was an incorrect call, but what good does that do? Maybe you think the Heat win anyway, which isn't exactly a stretch since they were up 5 with under a minute, but at the same time that's a lot of clock left to overcome a 2 possession game. Maybe the Knicks go quick for a 2 for 1. Maybe they hit a 3PM again on that possession. The point is, these missed calls are impacting games at a time when these games could not be more important.

Hawks vs Timberwolves

This game may not get the headlines, but it was maybe the worst fuck up of the entire night. Same situation here, two teams who are in Play In dogfights find themselves in a close game in the final seconds. What happens?

Advertisement

Watch Saddiq Bey on that offensive rebound. Pretty clear that Taurean Prince makes contact before the final buzzer. Was that called? Nope. Was that a mistake? Yup. How do we know? Because the ref admitted it after the game

Ah yes, Ben Taylor. Why does that name ring a bell?

This win helped MIN stay in 7th in the West while it pretty much killed ATL's chances of getting out of 8th. Now they need to worry about dropping even further to 9th, having just a 1.0 game lead over TOR. 

Again, this is another play where a miss call directly impacted the results of a game. Maybe Saddiq Bey hits them both, maybe he goes 1-2, maybe he misses both. The point is he was robbed of an opportunity to secure a much needed win all because an official, who is RIGHT THERE, decided to not call a blatant foul a foul. 

This is another situation where the L2M report will call this an incorrect missed call, but again, what good does that do? 

Then again, maybe it was just payback for the time this happened in the same quarter?

Advertisement

So when people say the NBA has an officiating problem, last night is the perfect example. I just don't understand how Adam Silver can see this happen every single night and be OK with it. His product is getting dragged and things only seem to be getting worse. You know something big is going to happen in a playoff game and shit is really going to hit the fan. People already talk about how the NBA is basically the WWE, and the longer Silver allows shit like this to happen who can really argue that? The NBA cannot be a league where the officials are making this type of impact on the results of games. Especially at this point of the season where the games are so important.

But guess what? We'll probably have another batch of these moments during tonight's slate of games. It's March 23rd and the league hasn't done shit to address this issue, why would they start now?