Referees Ruining Classic Series Between Miami Heat and Boston Celtics

Forget conspiracy theories. Forget about invoking the not-yet-existent ghost of Tim Donaghy.

Trying to prove that the NBA's officials are favoring either team in the Eastern Conference finals between the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat is a largely futile endeavor.

You won't get much of an argument from anyone, though, if you suggest that the officiating in this series has been sub-par, if not downright awful.

In Game 4 alone—a 93-91 overtime win for the C's—LeBron James fouled out from a playoff game for the first time in his career and the first time in any game since the Millard Fillmore administration (or, at least it feels that long).

Foul No. 5 came on (wait for it) a double foul in the fourth quarter, on a play in which he got tangled up with Kevin Garnett.

And by tangled up, I mean KG threw LeBron to the floor, or at least appeared to.

Yeah, because that does a whole lot of good...like a double technical, except it actually ruins the game!

Foul No. 6 for LeBron came on a play that wasn't quite so perplexing, but was nonetheless worthy of more than a few head scratches. The refs sent LeBron back to the bench at the 1:51 mark of overtime when Mickael Pietrus seemed to pull James down to the floor while already in mid-fall.

That's right. Pietrus flopped one of the NBA's most infamous floppers out in OT and, in turn, unintentionally touched off an Internet bonanza of jokes concerning James' desire to be on the floor during crunch time to begin with.

But that foul came two-and-a-half minutes after Paul Pierce was forced to leave with his sixth of the game while establishing post position against Shane Battier, marking Pierce's second foul-out of the series.

That left the Heat and the C's locked in the first NBA playoff game in over 20 years in which each team's top scorer fouled out (h/t ESPN's Tom Haberstroh).

"

Elias: Tonight was the 1st NBA playoff game in which each team’s outright high scorer fouled out since April 27, 1992.

— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) June 3, 2012"

If it weren't for LeBron's pass to Udonis Haslem at the end of regulation and Dwyane Wade's missed three-pointer as the clock wound down in overtime, Bill Kennedy and Joey Crawford would've come away as the "stars" of the game. 

All told, Sunday's officiating crew whistled the Heat and the C's for a combined 58 fouls, though they yielded only 44 free throws. To put that in perspective, the Heat had more free throws on their own in Game 2, when they stepped to the line for 47 attempts on account of 33 Boston fouls.

According to TeamRankings.com, Miami and Boston combined to average 39.9 fouls per game during the regular season. In the matchups between the Heat and Celtics, where the coaches played their available stars, the whistle blew for fouls an average of 35 times per game.

In this series? That number is 49.3 fouls per game.

Of course, a certain uptick in the playoffs is understandable, especially this deep into the postseason. The style of play is more physical due in part to the sort of chippiness that comes as a predictable byproduct of familiarity.

Because, you know, it breeds contempt and whatnot. 

But that sort of disparity is rather startling, whether you consider the result of Game 4 in isolation or see it as part of a pattern, along with the no-call on Rajon Rondo and the "foul" drawn by Wade in Game 2. 

Which makes you wonder, when and where are these fouls being called? And, more dubiously, why are they being called? Is it a matter of sloppiness by the players, who are undoubtedly fatigued from having played so much basketball over the past five months or so? Is it a matter of the officials being gassed from having called so many games over a frantic season to begin with? Is it, as mentioned earlier, a matter of the "playoff style" taking its toll on the box score?

Or is it some combination of all those factors?

It'd be reasonable to suspect that all of the above play a part. Then again, this isn't the playground; the players aren't calling their own fouls.

At some point, the line of reasoning in a situation like this, wherein the officiating seems to be taking its toll on the quality of the product, ultimately leads back to the zebra-clad lads with the whistles pursed between their lips.

Which is the greatest shame of all. After a condensed regular season, during which just about every measure of quality (i.e. scoring, field-goal percentage, BABIP) took a significant dip, the caliber of basketball was finally on the upswing. The dreck of the league had finally been culled, teams had finally fit in a few days of practice and coaches' concerns about resting guys to get through a rough schedule were finally supplanted by actual, basketball-related issues.

In the aftermath of that lockout-created mess, the Heat and the C's have thus far busied themselves with a dramatic, back-and-forth series that's already set to go six games and could easily extend to seven.

And yet, aside from the usual narrative about LeBron's clutch quotient, the one thread that's tied all these games together and has dominated the conversation far too often is the quality of the officiating. It hasn't so much been who made what play as who's been in foul trouble.

For all you conspiracy theorists out there, would the league really conspire to screw up the officiating intentionally? Would the NBA really cut off its own nose to spite the face?

OK, maybe that wasn't the best question to ask in light of the lockout talk.

Still, it's disappointing to think that just when the players had seemingly escaped from the frying pan of the 66-game season (and its effects on the level of play), they run into a firestorm of officials who can't seem to take two steps without making a questionable call.   

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