The National Basketball Association is in a precarious state right now, even as the conference finals have now produced must-see TV. The reason for this is not because the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder have drawn even with the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs in their best-of-seven game series. Rather, it is because the officiating has been mediocre – at best. More importantly, the play on the court that is leading to this shoddy officiating – specifically in the Eastern Conference Finals – is playing into a web of conspiracy-water-cooler- conversations.
How the fortunes of Boston and Oklahoma City have turned again goes back to how games are being officiated. In Games 1 and 2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, Miami stormed Boston for a commanding two-game lead on the FACT that they went to the charity line a whopping 70 times compared to the Boston’s 50. It should be noted that the Heat went to the free throw line 47 times in Game 2 alone. That almost matched the Celtics’ first two game totals combined. Since the officials have made their presence felt in this series, the games have been void of the same fluidity that the Western Conference Finals have shown.
San Antonio and Oklahoma City have been playing almost identical basketball and the games have been called that way. No team in that series has ever shot more than five free throws more than their counterpart in all four highly contested games. This alone leads to the conspiracy talk of how the NBA really, really, really wants to see Miami Heat star LeBron James finally win that elusive championship and have his team come out of the east. The Spurs/Thunder series has two highly respected teams that have drafted and built a core group of players the “right” way. The Celtics/Heat series represent the free agency period of how to put together a collective groups of superstars or “Big Threes” to see if they produce championships. It should be noted that the former way is still they correct way as San Antonio has four championships and Oklahoma City is clearly one of the NBA’s up and coming dynasties in the making. They are almost a carbon copy of the Spurs from an organizational and fundamental standpoint.
Let’s just hope that the must-see TV we are getting can be changed before the finals so we can unequivocally say that the best team won. The NBA will have a mess on their hands if the finals are about botched calls, flopping and whining. For my money, the Championship is won by the team that wins the Western Conference Finals… which happens to be playing and be officiated the way the game was intended.