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Rigged - Kings vs. Lakers - Game 6

t.work

Well-Known Member
This STILL pisses me off, and I'm not even a Kings fan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjRcTiwVEwo
 
Kings flopped and cried as much as anybody, and got their share of calls that series. Not sure it would have gone 6 if the Kings didn't get some extra calls earlier in the series. You guys are upset because for once the media told you to be upset. You and the media bought the act and were swayed by the crowd.

Even in the game 6, a lot of those calls people are crying about were reasonable calls. The elbow at the end was unfortunate, but not unique, the ref that made the call had a bad angle of the elbow, but he had to call Bibby's tackle.
 
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I have friends from Northern California who haven't watched the NBA sense this series. They tell, in retrospect, that it was the best decision that they have ever made in their lives.

I can't remember how often I have sworn off the NBA... only to come back. <sigh>
 
Kings flopped and cried as much as anybody, and got their share of calls that series. Not sure it would have gone 6 if the Kings didn't get some extra calls earlier in the series. You guys are upset because for once the media told you to be upset. You and the media bought the act and were swayed by the crowd.

Even in the game 6, a lot of those calls people are crying about were reasonable calls. The elbow at the end was unfortunate, but not unique, the ref that made the call had a bad angle of the elbow, but he had to call Bibby's tackle.


Not a clue, eh?
 
Take a look at the video.
The first 2 clips that the announcers are telling us to be outraged about.
#1 The video shows nothing. You can't tell from that clip if Vlade fouled or not.
#2 Bibby was not fouled, and the announcers are going crazy saying he was.

This are the best 2 clips they can lead their biased call for outrage with?

Fast forward to the last clip. You know as well as I do that elbows to the face have not been called tens of thousands of times in the NBA. I rail against this as much as anybody, but that call was not that unusual, especially back then a decade ago.

I have studied this series to examine the calls. You have not. If you turn off the sound, and just study the video of the whole series with an open mind, you'd see that the Kings got their share of calls in the series.

As a team, they may have been the biggest floppers and criers of all time. They flopped and argued and cried so much in that series it was contagious -- to their teammates, the crowds, the announcers, the media, and the fans at home. You were caught up by public opinion and are mistaken.
 
I am not a Laker fan, but Shaq played really well in that series. Sorry that Funderburk or whatever his name was couldn't match up with Shaq at the top of his game. He was the only guy on the Kings that really got the short end of the stick for the series, but I don't hear you whining over similar treatment Jazz backups and some starters got hundreds of times in similar situations. For some reason it is taboo to complain here about the treatment Keefe, Foster, Collins, Ostertag, Crotty, Eisely, Polynice etc got, but we're supposed to be outraged over one time it happened to a Kings player.
 
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Ha ha, I actually was somewhat partial to the Kings in that era.
Bobby Jackson was one of my favorite players. I liked Christie standing up to Kobe. I had great respect for Bibby's talent. Divacs was entertaining to watch. I was no fan of Kobe or Shaq. It was a long time ago, so i don't remember, but I probably was sympathetic to the Kings like everybody else during game 6. I'd like to be able to see what I wrote on the message boards at that time.

I think it is only recently when I went back and reviewed the series that I realized that it wasn't just Divacs who flopped , played dirty, cried and got lots of calls, the whole team did.
 
The refs gave the Lakers a big edge in the 4th quarter of game 6, and may have been conspiring to extend the series to a game 7, but individually these calls were not that unusual. What is unusual is the media noticing, and expressing outrage. A defender draws an offensive foul while sliding his feet. A defender is called for a foul trying to deny position in the paint to a superstar. We've seen these things a thousand times. I'd say the worst call was the one against Bibby defending a Kobe jump shot.

Videos could have been made of other quarters in the series showing that the refs were favoring the Kings.
 
Ha ha, I actually was somewhat partial to the Kings in that era.
Bobby Jackson was one of my favorite players. I liked Christie standing up to Kobe. I had great respect for Bibby's talent. Divacs was entertaining to watch. I was no fan of Kobe or Shaq. It was a long time ago, so i don't remember, but I probably was sympathetic to the Kings like everybody else during game 6. I'd like to be able to see what I wrote on the message boards at that time.

I think it is only recently when I went back and reviewed the series that I realized that it wasn't just Divacs who flopped , played dirty, cried and got lots of calls, the whole team did.

I HATED the kings back then. But no team can match my hate for the Lakers.

That Horry tip-out 3 at the buzzer was the most ridiculous thing ever. Was watching that game with a room full of Laker fans and seriously wanted to die.
 
You attack me personally because the substance of what I say is correct, and you've got nothin'.

Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you personally. My only intention was to state a fact, which is that you are a dumbass who doesn't know the difference between your *** and a rock on the ground, let alone have the slightest clue. Next time I will try to be more clear.:D

On June 10, 2008, Donaghy's attorney filed a court document alleging, among other things, that Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings was fixed by two referees. The letter states that Donaghy "learned from Referee A that Referees A and F wanted to extend the series to seven games. Tim knew Referees A and F to be 'company men', always acting in the interest of the NBA, and that night, it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series."[39] The Lakers won Game 6, attempting 18 more free throws than the Kings in the fourth quarter, and went on to win the 2002 NBA Finals. The teams were not named, but the Western Conference Finals was the only seven-game series that year.[40] The document claimed that Donaghy told federal agents that to increase television ratings and ticket sales, "top executives of the NBA sought to manipulate games using referees".[39] It also said that NBA officials would tell referees to not call technical fouls on certain players, and states that a referee was privately reprimanded by the league for ejecting a star player in the first quarter of a January 2000 game.[39] Stern denied the accusations, calling Donaghy a "singing, cooperating witness".[40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Donaghy
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you personally. My only intention was to state a fact, which is that you are a dumbass who doesn't know the difference between your *** and a rock on the ground, let alone have the slightest clue. Next time I will try to be more clear.:D

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to freakazoid again
 
the Kings still could have closed it out in game 7 at home, but the Lakers played better.

Because if the Kings have to win 5 games in a seven game series and the Lakers have to win 3 games in a 7 game series, that's totally fair.

Great point.
 
The Kings got their share of calls in the series. You are only looking at one quarter.
You are not counting all the flops the Kings got away with leading up to that quarter that put them in that position.
 
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The Kings got their share of calls in the series. You are only looking at one quarter.
You are not counting all the flops the Kings got away with leading up to that quarter that put them in that position.

You are defending one of the most notoriously unfairly officiated games in the history of the league. No one will agree with you and the facts don't back up your position. Numerically the numbers don't support that the Kings got parallel calls to even things out. The Kings got screwed in Game 6. That's the way it is.

Wilbon is an objective reporter on this series and this was his contemporary column in 2002:

By Michael Wilbon
Sunday, June 2, 2002; Page D01


LOS ANGELES

All along, I've wanted to see a seventh game. But not if it had to come about
like this.

If you care about basketball, Friday night's Game 6 of the Western Conference
finals was a rip-off. The Kings and Lakers didn't decide this series would be
extended until Sunday; three referees did. Statistical evidence is usually
circumstantial, but consider this anyway: the Lakers had shot an average of 22
foul shots through the first five games of this series, but on Friday night
here at home they shot 27 . . . in the fourth quarter.

Hardly ever in 12 years of writing commentary have I devoted an entire column
to the issue of refereeing. Overwhelmingly, these guys are terrific at a
next-to- impossible job. And the three men assigned to call Friday's Game 6 --
Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney and Ted Bernhardt -- are three of the best in the
game.

But to ignore the role officiating played in Game 6 of the NBA's showcase
playoff series would essentially be to ignore the primary story line in the
Lakers' 106-102 victory. And not addressing it would leave unexamined the
swelling chorus of concern among everyday basketball fans that the league
and/or its TV partner, NBC, has an interest in either helping the league's
most glamorous and marketable team, the Lakers, or at the very least
prolonging an already dramatic series.

Of course people believe that. The players themselves sometimes believe it.
Yes, Vlade Divac has a flair for the dramatic, but he spoke for any number of
people when he said late Friday night, "Why don't they [the NBA
powers-that-be] just let us know in advance? We come here, we go back to
Sacramento, back here. Just let us know."

Let me start by declaring I have no ties to Los Angeles or to Sacramento, and
have no rooting interest in the series other than that I did pick the Lakers
to win in six games. And I have zero tolerance for "conspiracy" stories, that
the NBA and NBC conspire to influence if not straight-up arrange the outcome.
Don't believe a word of it, never have.

Having said that, I have never seen officiating in a game of consequence as
bad as that in Game 6. It was bad in Game 5 in Sacramento, when the Kings got
the benefit of some very questionable calls, then unforgivably rotten on
Friday night in Game 6. Scot Pollard, on his sixth and final foul, didn't as
much as touch Shaq. Didn't touch any part of him. You could see it on TV, see
it at courtside. It wasn't a foul in any league in the world. And Divac, on
his fifth foul, didn't foul Shaq. They weren't subjective or borderline or
debatable. And these fouls not only resulted in free throws, they helped
disqualify Sacramento's two low-post defenders.

On the other hand, Kobe Bryant elbowed Mike Bibby in the nose in plain view
with the Lakers up by one, but no foul was called on Kobe, even though Bibby
lay on the court and then went to the sideline bleeding. The difficult thing
about refereeing an NBA game, compared with Major League Baseball and NFL
games, is that virtually every single call is subjective. But the calls made
on Friday night were just plain wrong, right out in the open for everybody
watching on TV to see, even before replay.

I wrote down in my notebook six calls that were stunningly incorrect, all
against Sacramento, all in the fourth quarter when the Lakers made five
baskets and 21 foul shots to hold on to their championship. I don't believe
for one second the referees have any agenda. Still, what would account for
perfectly competent officials making such bad calls in such a big game? Maybe
the same thing that affects players, like nervousness, or being intimidated by
the crowd (or mouthy participants), or anticipating contact instead of waiting
for them to occur.

Whenever I'm feeling so absolutely certain about some complex basketball
issue, I consult my basketball mentor, former Post colleague David DuPree, now
of USA Today. And DuPree told me Saturday afternoon that while he, too, has no
tolerance for conspiracy notions, "I've been covering the NBA for 30 years,
and it's the poorest officiating in an important game I've ever seen."

And when I checked my voice-mail late Friday night, I heard exactly what I
expected to hear: outrage. And these callers live mostly in metropolitan
Washington, D.C., with little emotional attachment to either the Lakers or
Kings. If people watching these games at home see Pollard fouled out of the
game without touching O'Neal, what do we think they think? I know what they
think. They think exactly what Divac thinks, that Sacramento would have to
have been letter-perfect to win Game 6 in Los Angeles because there is a
larger agenda.

I didn't say that's the reality of the situation. But that is, increasingly,
the perception. And therefore, the NBA has a problem.

It's not particularly new; we started hearing this in the late 1970s, heard it
through the Bird-Magic era, heard it sometimes when the Bulls dominated. But I
don't think the perception has ever been so widely held as it is now.

I talked Saturday morning to an NBA season-ticket holder and marketing
executive, a rational and insightful observer of sports. I asked him what he
thought of Game 6. "I didn't think it was that bad at all," he said of the
refereeing, momentarily stunning me. "It wasn't that bad because we all knew
NBC needed a Game 7."

This is what happens when you have such a wild disparity in fouls called from
one game to another, ridiculous 180-degree swings from one game to the next to
the next, as if Shaq ramming his elephantine shoulder into a defender is a
foul on Wednesday night, but not on Friday night. The Kings shot 20 more free
throws in Game 3, and Phil Jackson whined like a little pooch that the Lakers
were getting hosed. Then the Lakers shot one more free throw in Game 4. The
Kings shot 10 more in Game 5, prompting accusations from Shaq that somebody
was cheating the champs. And the refs responded by awarding the Lakers 15 more
free throws in Game 6. "Our big guys get 20 fouls called [in Game 6] and Shaq
gets four," Kings Coach Rick Adelman said. "They obviously got the game called
the way they wanted it to get called."

It speaks well of the Kings that they were overwhelmingly composed after
Friday's game, though a couple of veterans worry the younger Kings will adopt
a "They're-all-against-us" defeatist mentality that could hurt Sunday. The
Lakers, seemingly oblivious to being taken to the mat again, appear to have
regained some of their swagger. "We're the champions," Bryant said. "They're
going to have to take it from us."

The key matchup for Game 7 isn't Kobe vs. Bibby or Peja Stojakovic's health or
the Lakers' three-point shooting; it's how the referees are going to handle
Shaquille O'Neal. When we get deep enough into the game to make that
determination, we might have a handle on whether it's the Lakers or Kings who
will be headed to the NBA Finals.

I remember watching that game and Wilbon's response echoes my own. What happened on that night was utterly outrageous and it swung a championship.
 
sticky, I have conceded that the Kings got more calls in that one quarter.
but the coverage is not looking at all the flopping and calls favoring the Kings in the rest of that game and the rest of that series,
nor is the media making any effort to give similar examination and evaluation to inequities in any other playoff series...

4 things were special here,
1. The Kings had a superior record and a lot of public interest, and therefore high expectations.
2. The bad calls were concentrated in one quarter when the Kings could have clinched it.
3. The Kings were incredibly good at flopping and crying.
4. The announcers failed to give the benefit of the doubt to the referees as they normally do, and expressed emotional outrage at some calls, including some calls that were close calls, and even some correct calls.

I was probably the most vocal outspoken critic in the entire world of ref favoritism of star players like Shaq and Kobe for years leading up this series, possibly even influencing the media coverage in this instance, but upon an extensive review that no one else has done to my knowledge, I don't think it was as outstanding an example of one-sidedness as posterity has recorded.
What do you want me to do here?

I admit that the refs , whether intentional or not, gave too many calls to the Kings in that one quarter. If they made all those calls correctly , the Kings would likely have won that game, notwithstanding all the calls made in the rest of the game and series.
 
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