https://thesportspost.com/nba-steals-finals-houston-rockets/ The NBA Just Stole a Championship from the Houston Rockets May 29, 2018 // by Sam Quinn The Houston Rockets fought all season for home court advantage throughout the NBA playoffs. They played through injuries. They made aggressive roster moves during the season. And they cared on those random Tuesdays in Charlotte that contenders so often tend to sleep through. They did it for this exact moment. So that they could play Game 7 of this exact series against the Golden State Rockets on their home floor. But despite the red court, the black home jerseys, the raucous crowd and the official NBA schedule that declared that this game was to be played in Houston, it was not, in fact, played in Houston. It was played in a boardroom in Manhattan, where someone in a suit, not a jersey, decided that the Golden State Warriors would draw better ratings in the NBA Finals than the Houston Rockets. That decision may have been made before the season began. It might have been before the series began. Or it might have been made ahead of Game 6, when the officiating truly fell off of the rails in this series. But watching the absolutely disgusting performance by Scott Foster, Mike Callahan and Derrick Stafford makes it hard to believe that it didn’t take place at some point. Either that, or the three of them are so horrifically incompetent at their jobs that they don’t deserve to step on an NBA court ever again. The whole reason that we watch sports is its unscripted nature. The team with the biggest names isn’t supposed to win. The best team is. And there is a very legitimate argument that the Rockets weren’t that team on Monday. They made only seven-of-44 three-point attempts. That’s the sort of number that just doesn’t happen more than a few times in a season. They made boneheaded turnovers and missed layups throughout the entire series. And they even made the willing decision to put Ryan Anderson on the floor. Yet despite all of that, they lost Game 7 by only nine points. Despite referees forgetting the definition of a moving screen. Despite James Harden making a three-pointer as he was hit while he was in the air, but having it negated by a foul that apparently came before the shot. And despite Zaza Pachulia acting as a sixth defender from the bench for much of the second half. Those two factors can coexist. It can be possible for the Rockets to have blown a game that officiating made it very hard for them to win in the first place. The great tragedy of this game is that those missed three-pointers give the NBA an excuse. They don’t have to justify the poor performance of the referees when they can just point to the stat sheet. There wasn’t a wide free throw margin to point to like Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers, or the entirety of the 2006 NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat. The only record of the atrocity that took place at the Toyota Center will be the game tape and those who remember being horrified by it. If nothing else, Houston Rockets fans can take solace in the fact that there will never be a shortage of such people. DeMarcus Cousins took to Twitter to say that “the zebras are on the run!” Cousins has a long standing beef with Houston Rockets guard Chris Paul. He would not make such a comment if it weren’t warranted. NFL players got in on the fun as well. Emmanuel Sanders called it “bad officiating.” Open the discussion to the media and there are too many passive aggressive tweets to count. NBA fans deserve better than this. The league asks a lot of them. Basketball plays an eight-month season with another six weeks or so of the fiercest offseason in all of sports. There are games on every night, and the quality of peoples lives swing on the outcome. Fans make that investment with the expectation that it will pay off in the playoffs. The best teams will clash, and the better ones will win. Greatness is something to be earned on the court. Not focus grouped in a New York skyscraper. And no matter how ridiculous claims of rigging may be, the fact that these discussions take place at all is a tumor growing in an otherwise healthy sport. David Stern once said that his ideal NBA Finals matchup would be the Lakers against the Lakers. That’s the sort of attitude that alienates 29 fan bases. Fans have a right to believe that the teams they spend their time and money rooting for will be given a fair chance to earn victory on the court. Right now, they don’t. And there isn’t a clear way to fix this, but something has to give. If the NBA really is meddling in the outcome of games, it needs to stop playing with fire before it burns down half of its audience. And if it isn’t? It needs to overhaul the way that games are officiated. Because the rightful NBA champions are now watching the Finals at home. And no matter how happy the league is to see its golden franchise there in Houston’s place, it should be disgusted with the steps it took to get them there. The fans certainly are. And that’s all that matters.
