Paul Pierce, under the basket, was knocked to the floor after hitting a shot - face first; two front teeth are loose and there is an abrasion to his nose. No call. Jim O'Brien ejected. Celtics are getting robbed in the worst way. Update: He's back into the game!
Looks like the Suns come away with this one. The lead official should be fired - this is the most one-sided officiating I've ever seen - as he doesn't deserve his paycheck.
Ken Mauer has always been a terrible ref. It's always the usual suspects who make the worst calls and have the quickest tempers to make ejections - and yet the league keeps retaining these losers to ref games year after year. Steve Javey, Bob Delaney, Violet Palmer, Joey Crawford - these people should all be unemployed.
I feel that the officiating has been biased against the Celtics all season, but any fan would say that of his team. Last night, however, was pretty scary sh*t from any perspective. You could discern the signs early: Pierce picked up his first for a clean block in the lane, and on the other end was being handchecked by Bo Outlaw (or whoever it was.) Still, the Celtics were gaining momentum - I remember at least four plays where Walker went backdoor, got the feed on the low-left block and laid it in off the glass. Amare Stoudamire had trouble playing playing defense when backtracking on Vin Baker's baseline moves. Baker was having a great night until foul trouble (he has a bad habit of pushing his defender under the basket when he has poor positioning, but I didn't see any of that tonight.) He was called with a hook when Outlaw just grabbed him on the arm. Outlaw shuffles his feet, no call. Stoudamire backs straight into Baker with his feet set, no call. Then, in the third, you know the rest. Later in the game, the refs showed their true colors when Baker was called for a flagrant after hacking Marion on the arm on a layin. "These... guys... are... ridiculous!" Heinsohn kept shouting; he was just quiet for five minutes of the broadcast after the call, and rightfully so. Scary. I can understand consistently bad calls, but why are they so one-sided - especially in the away team's favor. Wow.
