Where Unfortunate Happens

Tonight, I'm watching Bugs-Spurs on the Lemur. The Spurs make two three pointers to cut the lead down to 1 with 15 seconds left. The Bugs inbound the ball to Chris Paul, who uses his hyperspeed to avoid the intentional foul, but not really. As CP3 gets to the frontcourt, Manu Ginobili finally gets to him, but not before Paul hoists one from 40 feet. The refs finally get the whistles out, but now it's Paul shooting three free throws; he makes them all. With the lead now up to four, the Spurs don't score again, and that's your ballgame.

Now, I'm not a Bug or Spur Fan; I was just hoping to see this go to overtime, so that I could get a few more minutes out of my fantasy game players. But if I were Spurs Fan, I'd be bent, because the zebras clearly missed the call on Paul's clock kill, because Tony Parker-Longoria clearly fouled CP in the backcourt. But, um, not the way the ref saw it, and instead of a shot at the end to tie, CPs made free throws ended things.

Now, is this really a disaster? No, not really; New Orleans led for most of the way and were probably going to win anyway, as Paul was just MVPish tonight, and they were at home.

But it does show the general maddening tendency of the Association, which is that every close game is going to have intense scrutiny on the refs. And ever since the Donaghy scandal, that scrutiny goes beyond thinking about the competence of the individual crew, or how so and so got lucky... and right into a realm that does the league no good at all.

Nothing you need in a recession, during the time of the year when the world cares more about college basketball and spring training baseball...