Former NBA official Tim Donaghy alleged in the Let’s Get Technical podcast with former players Bonzi Wells and Rasheed Wallace that the latter was often the target of $20 bets among referees, about who could give the forward a technical foul first. “And speaking of those technical fouls, you know, especially with [Wallace], depending on who was refereeing the game, if I was with a couple of my buddies, you know, we’d throw $20 on the table when we had a team like Portland and [Wallace], and we’d say, ‘The first one to bang Rasheed with a technical foul gets $60.” So, there were a lot of games that, you know, went on behind the scenes. When you say you deserve those technicals, eh, probably a couple of them were given out a little bit quicker than they were for the next guy because of a simple $20 bet in the locker room.”
Officiating Rumors
The Lakers had been annoyed with what they felt were extra steps being afforded to Heat rookie sharpshooter Duncan Robinson when he received the ball coming off curl screens, league sources told Yahoo Sports. And with Robinson occasionally talking trash, that only increased the Lakers’ annoyance after he torched them for 26 points while draining seven triples in Game 5.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope came into Game 6 focused on not losing sight of Robinson, a rookie who is already one of the best players in the league at moving without the ball. Of course, the game got chippy. “You ain’t nothing,” Caldwell-Pope shouted at Robinson with 2:50 left in the half while Miami’s Bam Adebayo was at the free-throw line. Referee James Capers warned Caldwell-Pope to cool it down and he replied, “He’s the one talking sh–. He ain’t getting nothing tonight.”
Fournier specifically mentioned the Los Angeles Lakers who, according to him, are known around the league as massive complainers. Fournier specifically remembered their first game against the Lakers, which was before the bubble in which they complained to the refs for most of the time despite playing in a scrimmage. “Our first pre-bubble game was against the Lakers, and they complained from the first to the last minute, although it was a scrimmage, no TVs or anything. It’s just how the Lakers approach games.” Evan Fournier, via NBA Extra
The NBA upheld the two calls Los Angeles Lakers coach Frank Vogel took exception with in L.A.’s 111-108 Game 5 loss to the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals on Friday, but the league did find two other calls that should have gone the Lakers’ way. In its last two-minute report released Saturday, the NBA announced that Jimmy Butler should have been called for a shooting foul on LeBron James with 1:01 remaining in the fourth quarter for extending his arm and making contact with the side of James’ head on a drive to the hoop when L.A. was trailing 105-104. The missed call ended up being inconsequential as James corralled his own miss and laid the ball in to put L.A. up 106-105 with 58.2 seconds left.
It also determined that with 28 seconds remaining, Miami’s Andre Iguodala should have been called for a defensive three-seconds violation for not clearing the lane when not actively guarding an opponent. Again, the no-call did not affect the Lakers as that possession ended with a layup for Anthony Davis to put L.A. up 108-107 with 21.8 seconds left.
Nuggets not happy with officiating in Game 4
The Lakers made 28 of their 35 free throws, including an 11-for-14 mark by James and a 13-for-14 line by Davis. “I’m going to have to go through the proper channels like they did to see if we can figure out how we can get some more free throws,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone, whose team shot 23 free throws. The Lakers outrebounded the Nuggets 41-33, including 12-6 on the offensive boards. They outscored the Nuggets 25-6 on second-chance points. “That’s really hard to overcome,” Malone said.
