It was his call to make, and you just knew that he wouldn’t.
Not after the laughing Tim Duncan fiasco, not after the shouting match with Greg Popovich in the Western Conference semi-finals earlier this month. No, Joey Crawford was going to let the play determine the game’s outcome, and the San Antonio Spurs were going to like it.
Both sides vehemently denied that Crawford’s presence in the game would have any effect. Pretty soon, Stu Jackson is going to give the language on why Derek Fisher’s bump on Brent Barry in the waning second of the Los Angeles Lakers 93-91 road victory over the Spurs went uncalled. While the NBA will probably make this the last chapter in the Crawford-Spurs saga, the book’s author couldn’t have penned a more climatic ending.
For all intents and purposes, the series is not over. We’ve seen the Lakers blow a 3-1 lead before, and it would be just like the Spurs to come back and do it with a hobbled Manu Ginobili and a stifled Tony Parker. Still, the 2008 San Antonio Spurs don’t look like the kind of team built for the impossible, they specialize in making the probable look good.
Unfortunately, so does Joey Crawford.
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Crawford is a joke of a referee. Just like every other crawford officiated game, any kind of weak little touch foul was called and crawford turns it into a WNBA game. I thought this was the playoffs. The biggest thing referees say they try and uphold is consistency throughout the game. So why is it that when it got down to the wire they dont call fisher coming down on brent barry with an elbow to the back of the head? I cant help but think there is an ongoing conspiracy to thwart SA from getting to the championship so that that bastard Stern can get better ratings