Would you have called a foul at the end of the Spurs/Lakers game 4?

So here's your definitive answer:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/news/story?id=3416412

League acknowledges Spurs' Barry was fouled

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
(Archive)

Updated: May 28, 2008, 9:52 PM ET

The league office on Wednesday reviewed the final play of the San Antonio Spurs' 93-91 home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals and acknowledged that a two-shot foul should have been called on Derek Fisher for impeding Brent Barry.

After falling behind by seven points in the final minute, San Antonio sliced the deficit to two and regained possession with 2.1 seconds to play.

Barry then wound up with the ball in the center of the floor on a play called for Manu Ginobili and faked Fisher in the air but struggled to get off a 3-point heave at the buzzer after Fisher came down and bumped Barry.

"With the benefit of instant replay, it appears a foul call should have been made," league spokesman Tim Frank said Wednesday.

The miss sealed an L.A. victory that moved the Lakers into a commanding 3-1 series lead entering Thursday's Game 5 at Staples Center.

But the Spurs did not protest the non-call afterward, even though a foul called before the shot would have sent Barry to the line for two free throws and a chance to force overtime.

The non-call nonetheless generated more than the usual scrutiny because the closest referee to the play was Joey Crawford, with whom San Antonio has a contentious recent history.

"That play," Barry said, "was not where the game was lost."

The Spurs, in truth, wouldn't have had a chance to tie or win the game in the final two seconds if not for a fortuitous non-call on the previous possession.

Television replays indicated that Fisher's shot with 6.9 seconds to go grazed the rim before bouncing out of bounds off of Robert Horry's leg, meaning that the Lakers should have had a new shot clock instead of asking Kobe Bryant to hurry a fadeaway jumper after the ensuing timeout.

The new shot clock likely would have forced San Antonio to foul Bryant as opposed to getting the ball back off Bryant's miss to draw up a potential game-winning play.

"It wasn't a foul. ... I think it was a proper no-call from what I saw," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of Fisher bumping Barry.

Added Spurs forward Tim Duncan: "You're not going to get that call. They're not going to make that call."

The Lakers were likewise adamant that no foul should have been called on Fisher, pointing at least in part to the fact that they didn't get a new shot clock on the Fisher miss -- and that Bryant didn't earn a single trip to the free-throw line despite attempting 29 shots from the field.

"Yeah, he bumped him," Lakers coach Phil Jackson said of Fisher landing on Barry. "You know, games go like that."

 

league finally admits the refs were wrong

 

I don't think refs should be the ones that decide the outcome of games. I feel the refs do a good job of swallowing their whistles on situations like this and only call fouls where it was obvious and blatant that the defender fouled them. On this play, it looked like he traveled so everything canceled each other out.

 

It was clearly a foul, first fisher elbow barry in the head and then he bumps on barry. the guys you said barry traveled, kobe traveled like that, the play before

And for the guys that say that barry should sell the foul, I dont understand you guys, first you are against flops and over acting, then you said that you have to sell the fouls, so a player doesnt over-reacted a foul, and thats why you dont call it?

 

Barry took 3 bunny hops before the contact.

 

So it's final, it was a foul. Case closed? Not so fast, a more touchy question would be - why it wasn't called? They didn't see Fisher landed his whole body on Barry at the midcourt without anything blocking views? Or it was Barry but not Wade or Dirk? Or it was dying seconds? No answer would be satisfying.

 

He traveled, the NBA is just appeasing the Spurs.

DD

 

exactly what i been trying to say. if you want to fix flopping, call stupid crap like this.

look at all the crap we are sayin
1. he wasnt fouled
2. he traveled
3. he should have sold it.
4. he should have shot it while getting fouled.

and then the league wants to all of a sudden admit they are wrong? i want to know wat their real intention was with that.

and what bout kobe being an ass about it? this is the same kobe who flops his arms around hitting people in the air, crying, whining about fouls...

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forward that to 5.25 on.

and to the point of refs not wanting to decide the game.

i am sorry but not calling and calling = deciding. that's the freaking refs job! you call it = decided it for the spurs. not call it = decided it for the lakers.

 

just glad more folks are speaking the truth now.

this talk will go away in 24 hours after game 5 though.

 

NBA should just admit their referees suck!

 

Not calling a foul when a foul happens IS DECIDING THE OUTCOME OF THE GAME.

I don't know why this simple truth is so hard to understand by so many people.

 

because they are idiots.

not calling fouls is the easy way for the referees to say oh we dont know wat the crap we are doing. we are just going to let them play.

 

No foul because the travel happened first.

And Michael Finley was out of bounds........

DD

 

I hate flopping as much as the next guy, but selling a foul is not exactly the same as flopping.

Selling = trying to get across to the ref that you actually got fouled. (obviously they need help deciding sometimes)

Flopping = trying to trick the ref into thinking you got fouled.


If Barry had fallen to the floor in a heap after he got hit, I would have no problem with it, because he actually got fouled. They just didn't call it.

 

point taken. but i think you're splitting hair. a lot of times manu was fouled, he just over-reacts.

 

I don't think it's splitting hairs when in one case it is a foul and in the other it's not a foul. Seems pretty cut and dry to me, actually.

 

Foul, on the floor. Penalty shots.

The bad thing is, that decides the game just as much as a no call. They honestly did the right thing with the no-call, allowing Barry to still try for the 3.

Evan

 

that's an interesting way to look at it, i think it was clearly a two shot foul, but barry wants to shoot the three in that situation, if he actually tries to get the shot off and makes, no one complains.

 

I think that what he is trying to say is that this kind of traveling are usually no calls while the foul is a call that is made 90% of the time.

 

That "travel" is NEVER called. If it was, games would take 6 hours to finish. On the other hand, when a defender leaves his feet, turns sideways, and jumps into the guy with the ball, it IS called a foul, every time.