Steinmetz: Official's call negates great games
Source: Examiner.com (Original Article)
SAN FRANCISCO
(Map, News)
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The worst part about referee Bob Delaney’s offensive foul call on Monta Ellis at the end of the Warriors-Los Angeles Lakers game Monday wasn’t necessarily the call itself.
No. The worst part is that fans are talking about an official’s questionable late whistle instead of all the other stuff that happened during two of the most competitive, scintillating NBA games of the season. It stinks that 90 percent of the discussion regarding a wonderful back-to-back miniseries between the Warriors and Lakers will focus on the final three seconds instead of the previous 95 minutes, 57 seconds.
Not to mention that every fan at Oracle Arena or watching on television was deprived of seeing what would have happened on that final Warriors possession in overtime. Thinking about the unfulfilling conclusion to the Lakers’ 123-119 overtime win, I couldn’t help but think that Warriors fans got stuck with the most brutal kind of loss.
Indeed, it would have been significantly more palatable had Baron Davis missed a wide-open 3-pointer at the buzzer that could have won the game.
Even Kobe Bryant making a steal in that situation would have been less infuriating.
Of all the things said in the postgame analysis, the one I disagree with most, however, is the notion that the play should have been a no-call.
It couldn’t be a no-call, even though everyone agrees players  and not the officials  should determine the outcome of the game. But when Derek Fisher interjects himself into a play like that, starts forcing contact and bodies get strewn, it’s impossible to not make a call.
This isn’t rugby. An official can’t let that kind of blatant physicality go regardless of whether the game is on the line or not.
Taking a look at the replay, it’s clear that the seeds of Delaney’s call were planted even before Stephen Jackson received the ball to inbound Domain name search it at halfcourt. Bryant and Davis …continue reading