ALREADY, THE NBA IS BROUGHT DOWN BY PLAYOFF OFFICIATING BEDLAM
A classic doubleheader was marred by referees missing a timeout by Philadelphia coach Nick Nurse — which, along with LeBron James calling the blunders “f—ing stupid,” makes us wonder about integrity
Our fingernails need an emergency filing. Just days into the postseason, the NBA office should make those class-action appointments with considerable alarm. It’s too early to have officiating problems become central in the equation, and after the most electric doubleheader in recent memory, I’ll reiterate the gambling ramifications.
Should we administer lie detectors to referees after every game?
Why not? How in the smack of fingers pressed into the back of a hand, in the form of a timeout from Nick Nurse, did referees completely ignore him Monday? Check the replay. It happened, as Tyrese Maxey had the ball after an inbound pass and his coach repeatedly wanted the clock stopped. The Philadelphia 76ers held a two-point lead in raucous Madison Square Garden. A timeout in the final seconds might have been enough to bury the Knicks, who weren’t playing well enough to escape with a win.
No call was made. Maxey turned the ball over. You’ve seen the rest. From New York’s back streets came Donte DiVincenzo, one of three Villanova champions who eye the city’s 51-year losing streak, missing one 3-pointer … and hitting another for a brain-blurring lead. The span took 14.3 seconds. The Knicks won, 104-101.
And the league is in shambles already. The 76ers filed a grievance hours later. If commissioner Adam Silver is built with proper gumption, he will speak publicly about why a timeout wasn’t awarded. Otherwise, why watch this bedlam?
“Well, the first thing is obviously they score,” Nurse said. “We take a look at getting it in quick. We don't get it in quick. I call timeout. Referee looked right at me. Ignored me. Went into Tyrese, I called timeout again. Then the melee started. I guess I got to run out onto the floor or do something to make sure and get his attention, but I needed a timeout there to advance it. Would've been good.
“But, couldn't get it."
Is it possible the NBA wants the Knicks and their full-scale audience to make a run through the Eastern Conference playoffs? Or until the Boston Celtics derail them? Nothing shocks me, including how the same officials missed an obvious foul call on Jalen Brunson, who grabbed Maxey’s jersey on the inbound.
“Everybody was trying to call a timeout on the floor. Me included. Coach on the sideline,” said Joel Embiid, whose endless injuries are part of every playoff scenario. “But they didn’t give it to us. But, forget about the timeout. There's a bunch of fouls. That's f—ing unacceptable.”
What about Maxey? He played after missing a morning shoot-around with an illness and scored 35 points, 15 in the fourth quarter. “He did his job. That's on the league. That's on the NBA. That's on the frigging referees,” Embiid said. “I am sure the 2-minute report is going to come out and we are going to see what happened. Like I said, that's unacceptable. That's not on him. That's not on any of us. We fought for 47 minutes and whatever 20 seconds. For that to happen ... that's not OK.”
So the league’s 2-minute officiating report is revealed and says what? The referees missed the call, it will conclude. The series carries on down Interstate 95, making us wonder why we watched those 47 minutes and 20 seconds in a fairly short life. Why not whistle off the victory, signal the timeout and replay the rest of the game from that point? It’s the postseason. Why assemble teams in late September and play into late April when absurdities ruin the importance? Even LeBron James, after losing a killer heartbreaker to Jamal Murray and the Nuggets, had to comment in Denver after D’Angelo Russell was roughed up by Michael Porter Jr. in the third quarter.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the Replay Center, to be honest,” he said of the East Coast review operation. “D-Lo clearly gets hit in the face on the drive. What the f— do we have a replay center for if it’s going to go (like that)? ... it doesn’t make sense. It makes no sense. It bothers me. Then I just saw what happened in the Sixers-Knicks games too. What are we doing? It’s f—ing stupid.”
F—ing stupid, he said. Is Silver listening?
“That’s a foul we all saw on national television,” said Russell, writing on X.
LeBron could have hit an unguarded 3-pointer to finish the game. But he’s correct — if you have a Replay Center, use it responsibly to fuel, as the league claims, “a groundbreaking high-speed arena network to enhance the performance of referees and to accelerate the review process.” Unless, of course, it’s based in Secaucus, N.J., which is 5.3 miles from Madison Square Garden, via the Lincoln Tunnel.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.