http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/ian_thomsen/12/31/thomsen.referees/index.html PORTLAND -- This might have been the worst official decision I have ever seen at a major sporting event. I have seen criminal verdicts made by judges of boxing, more than once I've heard of an extra down awarded accidentally to a college football team, and baseball umpires have infuriated me more often than I can remember. But a new threshold was established here Tuesday when the Portland Trail Blazers accidentally put six men on the court against the Boston Celtics. The sixth man scored a basket. The referees acknowledged that he should not have been allowed on the floor. And then they permitted his basket to stand. In other words, the officials rewarded a team for the most brazen form of cheating. "I thought that was a disgrace,'' said Celtics All-Star guard Ray Allen. "I've never experienced anything like that since I've been in the NBA. To lose two points like that, it is a disgrace.'' The Blazers obviously were not trying to cheat anybody. Afterwards they were embarrassed to have left a sixth man on the floor. Inbounding from a timeout with 10.1 seconds remaining in the first half, they moved the ball around so deftly that the Celtics couldn't cover all of them. (For good reason.) With 3.0 seconds to go, Greg Oden passed to Travis Outlaw cutting to the basket for a layup. Boston forward Kevin Garnett immediately turned to a referee and pointed out the six Blazers, none of whom tried to escape. They remained on the court for all to count while referees Mike Callahan, Rodney Mott and Zach Zarba discussed what should be done. They issued a technical foul against the Blazers, which was converted by Allen to give Boston a 45-40 lead going into halftime. Outlaw's layup was permitted to stand, however. Apparently the referees claimed they had no other option, as the result of their own failure to notice the extra Blazer before the basket was scored. "If we would have caught the six men on the court before the made goal then there would have been no score,'' referee Mike Callahan told a pool reporter following the game. "We would have called a technical foul on Portland and stopped play. After the technical foul shot (by the Celtics), Portland would have inbounded the ball as they were in possession before the stoppage.'' This event is the harshest sign yet that NBA referees are frazzled. Not all of them, of course: I believe there are some officials who would have come to their senses and made the right call, regardless of how the particular rule may or may not be written. They would have done the right thing today at the risk of whatever their bosses in the league office might have said about them tomorrow. Can you imagine an NFL team scoring a touchdown with 12 men on the field? The points would not be allowed to stand. When a team cheats -- and putting an extra man into play is cheating, whether it's accidental or not -- the points should not count. "They said you couldn't correct the play, which I still disagree with,'' said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "But the problem was we called around, we called the league, and they didn't have the answer either.'' A trusted member of the Celtics told me that when Boston captain Paul Pierce complained about the injustice of the decision, one of the referees raised his whistle to his lips -- threatening Pierce with a technical. Eventually the Celtics lost 91-86. They were trailing by 87-86 with 22.6 seconds remaining, which is when they began committing fouls to regain possession and the game was lost. "Oh, that was awful,'' said Rivers of the Blazers power play, "and it actually came back into play, those two points. It absolutely had an effect. Our guys were complaining the rest of the game about it. I kept telling them you've got to get over that. But that was a doozy. There's no excuse for that to happen.'' Rivers went out of his way to add that the Blazers deserved to win the game because they had played with more ambition and energy than his team. To their discredit, the Celtics wasted a lot of energy worrying and complaining about one bad play. But make no mistake. It was a very bad play. And I don't think it should be taken lightly. I write this in the early morning hours without knowing exactly how the rule is written regarding this particular infraction. What I do know is that the rule in this case is irrelevant. This is a black-and-white case of right and wrong, and I wonder if the referees got it so badly wrong because they have been mismanaged for so long a time that they can't begin to tell right from wrong anymore. I wonder if they're so worried about looking over their shoulders that they can't see what is in front of them. The first rule of basketball is that each team shall play with an equal number of players. To what good is a referee if he or she cannot uphold this simple justice? Anyone can make the mistake of failing to count the players; the issue lies in what these game officials did next while trying to satisfy their supervisors. Am I making too much of what might have been a simple error in judgment? Or am I right to wonder whether the league has so convoluted its referees that they no longer feel empowered to distinguish right from wrong?
on a side note, I like how the Blazers are 20-12 and everything is lookin great for them, but Houston is 20-12 and the sky is falling.
Michael Finley standing out of bounds and swiping the ball out of Jon Barry's hands in a playoff game thinks there is nothing wrong with the refs' decision.
Give it a rest. Celtics were up at halftime. One missed or made jumpshot could have changed all of this. I hate it when people say "damn, if only he had made that free throw in the 2nd quarter, it would have been a tied game". Now if this had happened In the 4th quarter with the momentum building for the Celtics (AKA, Michael Finley out of bounds steal) then theres reason to complain.
the sad thing is that this got so much press because it was the celtics. had it been any other team that the blazers played it would have probably been a foot note or just a light remark to it. the refs made it back up by giving pierce 2 shots when he clearly traveled and an 'and 1' when he charged into oden late in the fourth. portland just out worked them in the second half plain and simple and all without their best player.
It was totally incompetent of the refs to allow this, but it only gave the Blazers a one point advantage, right before halftime. They got the basket, Ray Allen hit the technical FT and the Celts got the ball. Like the ref said, if they had caught it beforehand, the Celts would have had a tech FT, the Blazers would have kept the ball and may have scored a FG anyway. One point! Whoop dee doo. That still doesn't negate what a stupid mistake this was by the refs.
Good...the Celtics are the biggest whiny babies on the planet, and Garnet needs to be undercut and flipped on his thick skull. DD
I'll go with the general consensus here and say that the Celtics deserve this. I hope KG gets so pissed that he gets wasted tonight and is arrested for DUI
No sympathy for Boston, but I'll have to say there is something fishy in Portland. Doesn't it also have the slowest shot clock for the home team when the game is on the line?
I don't understand the difficulty in blowing the whistle, letting the Celtics shoot a technical, and then resetting the clock to 10.1 seconds and replaying the possession...
right on. the refs handled it in the correct manner and you gave a good example. another more typical way of seeing this is when there is a regular foul during play but the refs dont see it. if the refs dont see it, it doesnt happen. the analogy to the nfl isnt really fair because they have the use of challenges and replays, which give the refs the power to reverse and pull the points.
The ballistic play call by Gene still rings in my ears. I also can't forget the ref walking over to him after the game and shouting, "you are an a** hole", which we all clearly heard on the radio.
Before they allowed you to use replay to determine if there were 12 men on the field, the points would have counted in the NFL, and would if the team had no challenges outside of two minutes. They wouldn't flag them after the play had already been completed if an official hadn't noticed the 12 men.
Umm - if the refs didn't throw a flag on the play in the NFL, the play absolutely would have counted. It's no different than Colorado (?) beating Missouri on the 5th down in their national championship year. If you don't notice it until after the fact, the team gets away with it. That's always how it has been in sports.
