TheGoldSeat

The Timberwolves played the Lakers tonight on ESPN and a few things really caught my attention and made me a little more distrusting of the “entertainment league” called the NBA.  I don’t know if I can even call it a real sport, it’s one level away from the WWE.

Maybe its that I’ve just watched 2 exciting days of REAL basketball on CBS.  Maybe watching the game being played in a fair and honest way has poisoned my mind.

Two Interesting Things I Noticed:

1. Craig Smith is a beast, the man has a motor that doesn’t stop, no matter the circumstances. We’ll get to more of that later.

2. Did Ricky Davis take a shower during halftime in his uniform.  I think the only dry parts on his uniform were a few inches surrounding the logo on the sides of his shorts.  That man was disturbingly wet.

One Thing That Really Got Me Irritated:

1. How far can we take this star preference / vegas rigging controversy in the NBA?  Is it right that Kobe gets to go to the line 25 times a night?  If you watched the last 2 min there were some mysteriously strange things happening.  First Hassell gets a phantom foul call on a jumper by Kobe with 1:17 left.  The score at the time of the jumper miss 101-94 (7 pts remember this).  Then with :45 seconds left Craig Smith goes in for a dunk and doesn’t get a foul called.  ESPN shows a replay while the announcers talk about how “obvious” Lamar Odom hits Smith, the score at the time of the blown call 104-98 (6 pts remember this), the dunk would have cut it to 4 pts.
Kobe then gets fouled and hits 2 free throws 106-98 (8 pts remember this).  When play continues Ricky Davis hits a jumper to cut the lead to 6 pts and MN tries to foul, but the refs don’t call the first obvious one by Garnett allowing a few more seconds to expire.  At which point Greg Anthony the ESPN announcer talks about Whittman almost getting a Technical because he can’t believe how the refs are not calling stuff.  Walton hits 1 free throw to extend the lead to 7 pts.  Kobe and Craig Smith exchange dunks and final score ends up 109-102 = 7 pts difference.

So why does all this “special” ref manipulation matter in a meaningless late season NBA game you ask???

The line in Las Vegas was Lakers -6.5.

Am I the only one who is bothered by this?  And a special thanks to Tivo for allowing me to breakdown the latest Vegas manipulation scam in the NBA.