The Los Angeles Lakers would have probably won the series anyway. I'd picked them in one of two NBA pools I'm in to do just that. But probably became certainty last night. Or did it actually happen two nights before?
An improbable San Antonio Spurs comeback came within a Joey Crawford non-call of reversing the tide of this series. Yep, the same Joe Crawford, suspended last year after an intemperate meltdown over Tim Duncan laughing at one of his mistakes, looked on with amusement as Derek Fisher body-bumped Brent Barry, then in the act of hoisting up a potential game-winning three. Five minutes into the first quarter, a finger tip grazing the elbow of a shooter results in the toot of a whistle. Last second chance for a home team to win the game with an impossible comeback where the shooter gets crunched? Not in Joey World.
Joey sure showed he was no homer. He watched it all happen from the best spot on the floor and swallowed the whistle that would have likely resulted in a win for San Antonio and two nights of hand-wringing by the Lakers. It was such a bad non-call, the NBA had to admit it 24 hours later. Not that mattered. Revenge is sweet, and for the Spurs, smiles happen.
The Spurs said all the right things. They cast off the referee excuse, knowing they had no rights to be within a missed call of winning (Barry, the son of Rick Barry, would almost certainly have hit all three freebies).
It was a game where the last mistake loses scenario played out like a horror film. Three-time ring-wearing Lakers Fisher and the West Coast Smirk both had gigantic brain cramps in the last minute. Fisher got away with his foul. Kobe Bryant thought to end the farce of a game with a mad dash layup, missing it and not wasting seconds that left open the possibility of a Spur comeback. Still, the Spurs were almost enthusiastic in giving the Lakers repeated chances to put away the game before the end-of-game shenanigans. They rebounded worse than the Toronto Raptors on a bad day. So they deserved to lose too.
Thursday's denouement ran from a hoary old script. The Spurs got out in front and their old legs couldn't carry them over the finish line. There's going to be some major re-tooling of the supporting cast around Duncan, Parker and Ginobili this off-season. And Duncan's not the both-half demon he once was. He's getting old quickly. His second half's have too many missed free throws and turn around half-hooks that too often require a companion rebounder that doesn't exist.
I would sure have liked to see what tonight's game would have looked like, if the Spurs will still jonesing on the adrenalin from an impossible comeback Tuesday, with the Lakers seeing stars over their stars' faux pas (plural). But Joey made sure that didn't happen.
Let's hope he doesn't have any OTHER grudges to work out over the remainder of the NBA playoffs.
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