NBA Playoffs: Where Referee Incompetence Happens

What happened tonight in the Detroit Pistons-Orlando Magic playoff game wouldn’t be tolerated in a youth basketball game.

At any level of basketball, if there is a problem with the clock, and for whatever reason a play begins and the clock doesn’t, have you ever seen the play count?  Never.

Until tonight.  It is a disgrace.

There is no way of knowing how the fourth quarter would have played out, but this was a close game, a one possession game in the closing minutes.  Those three points were crucial.

For those who did not see the play, at the end of the third quarter of the Pistons-Magic playoff game, with Orlando leading 76-75, Detroit had the ball with 5.2 seconds left.  Chauncey Billups raced up court.  Only problem, the clock froze at 4.8 seconds.

This allowed Billups to get the ball back and then toss in a key three-pointer.  The Magic bench was going crazy, yet no official on the court noticed the clock stopped.

TNT was able to put a clock on the screen and show definitively that Billups' shot came after time should have expired.  But, according to Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, he was told by Steve Javie, the lead official, that there was not the technology at courtside in Detroit to figure out the time.

Let's see - game in Detroit, mistake helped Detroit, and the technology to look into the problem doesn't exist in Detroit.  It is a good thing then that the officials rewarded the Pistons for this error. 

Van Gundy said afterwards, "Steve Javie told me that with the technology they have, they should be able to go over and look at that.  [But in Detroit], they did not have that available. He was frustrated by that -- probably not quite as much as us."

The clock worked all game before this play.  The clock worked all game after the play.  It just stopped working for this one play.  It would have been easy to just start the play over at 5.2 seconds.

Instead, what did the officials do – once Javie saw there wasn't the technology to look at a clock, he threw his hands in the air and went with what he thought was the next best solution - guess how long the play took and then count the basket.  They did this even though they had no idea how much time expired, and were not paying any attention to the clock, evidenced by the fact none of the officials noticed while the play was going that it wasn’t moving.  Three refs on the court, not one had the intelligence to notice the clock.

But don’t worry.  The refs made it up to the Magic, by putting 0.5 seconds on the clock and giving Orlando the ball.  Wow, officials, that sure was mighty nice of you.

Sticking with the standard referee arrogance, Steve Javie declined to be interviewed after the game.   Referees and meteorologists, the two highest profile jobs with the least amount of accountability.

This was a playoff game.  There is no conceivable way an official can allow a play to count if there is no idea and they are just completely guessing whether or not the play went off in time.  It just can’t happen.  Detroit outplayed Orlando in the fourth, maybe the game unfolds the same way.  But maybe it doesn't.  We will never know because the officials decided to guess.

Had the refs been doing their job, the play would have stopped immediately upon the clock not working.  It is their fault the play continued.

The terrible thing is the refs completely got it wrong, cost Orlando 3 points, and the Magic have no recourse.  Nothing they can do.  A bad call can happen.  Mistakes can happen.  But the officials in this case did not use their brains and simply compounded the problem.  

If David Stern isn't too busy tomorrow researching hand gestures or helping Clay Bennett pick out office space in Oklahoma City, I am interested to see what the mighty commish has to say on what transpired.   I would expect the standard Stern defiant response of the officials do a great job, the officials did what they were supposed to do, there was nothing different that could have been done, and that is all there is to it. 

And of course, no one dares question Stern so the subject will then be dropped, the refs will still have screwed up, and the Magic will still have lost a playoff game on the road that maybe could have turned out differently if not for the official mistake.

What makes it so much worse is that the solution was so simple, and likely occurs in gyms around the country all the time if a clock fails to start for whatever reason – it’s a do-over.

Maybe that isn’t ideal, and it would have been a bad break for Detroit also considering points would come off the board.  But the ideal situation would be for the clock to have started.  Once that didn't happen, the refs needed to do what made sense.  And a do-over would have made a lot more sense than three refs trying to figure out if the play felt like 5.3 seconds or 4.2 or 4.5.  Starting the play over was the only solution. 

First air horns instead of shot clocks and now this.  The NBA may want to get its act together for the remainder of the postseason.