The Lakers and Celtics' old rivals met, and the game was thrilling, and both sides brought out a high level, fighting until overtime to divide the winner.
However, this originally wonderful game has a "stain".
In the final moments of the fourth quarter, the two teams were tied, James broke through the basket, and from the slow-motion replay, Tatum's hit was quite obvious, but the referee did not blow, and the old Jen missed the chance to kill and had to go into overtime with a physical slot close to empty, and then swallowed a defeat. After the game, the referee admitted that James did have physical contact with the ball, and the referee missed the foul.
Missed and mistaken judgments are part of the game, but if similar situations happen again and again, it is not normal.
On January 13, the Lakers lost to the Lone Rangers in double overtime, and James also had a chance to kill, and his cut to a layup near the end of the first overtime was interfered by Wood. Wood's ball was recorded as a block, but slow motion showed that Wood hit Jen's arm, which was confirmed by the referee's report after the game, but the result could not be changed.
Not long ago, NBA director Xiao Hua also said that it is necessary to cherish James' incredible evergreen career, but the league's penalty scale seems to be incompatible with "cherishing", and these two killer shots were missed, and it may be more appropriate to use "waste".
Did the referee really not see the suspected hitmanship? If you see it, why not blow it? Or ask, why is it always James who encounters this situation, why is the legendary star whistle to Old Jen not applicable here?
In fact, as early as eight years ago, the NBA pundits gave an explanation.
In 2015, Joe Borgia, senior vice president of NBA replay and referee management, was interviewed by Tencent. Borgia has a decade of NBA refereeing experience, later became a league executive, is the head of the replay center, and arguably an expert on referee-related issues.
In that interview, Borgia answered a question that many fans are concerned about, why are some of James' seemingly obvious steps not blown?
Borgia admits that James has a lot of possession, so it is suspected that there are relatively more steps, and if they are blown, the fluency of the game will be greatly affected. When explaining James' walking, Borgia also linked the foul in passing.
"LeBron was also fouled more often than others, but many of them didn't blow, because others were tall, held the ball more, didn't blow when they walked, didn't blow when they were fouled, and almost tied." Borgia said.
From the absolute theory, Borgia's explanation is a bit strange, since there are rules, you should blow according to the rules. However, the rules are "dead", the enforcement of the rules is "alive", star whistles, home whistles, balance whistles, etc., can appear at any time in the game, James may be the beneficiary of the referee's blowing method, or it may be a victim.
Think about LeBron, who was still a teenager, and killed the Wizards' "fantasy" footsteps in the playoffs, and it may be a relief that these two killings were blown.