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Notorious NBA ref Tim Donaghy claims Mavericks should have won 2006 Finals: "The NBA started to manipulate the series to make sure it was extended and Dallas could never recover from it"

Tim Donaghy says the fix was in for the 2006 NBA Finals.

According to Donaghy, the NBA rigged the series, not fixing on a game-to-game basis, but ensuring that it would get extended after the Mavs went off to the races and took a 2-0 lead. That alleged leniency was all the Heat needed to turn things around.

"I think basically Dallas got screwed out of a championship in that situation because the NBA started to manipulate the series to make sure it was extended and Dallas could never recover from it," Donaghy said, per a 2017 Fox Sports Australia article by Brett Geeves.

https://www.basketballnetwork.net/old-school/notorious-nba-ref-tim-donaghy-claims-mavericks-should-have-won-2006-finals

It was already clear in 2006... Probably 20 years from now we will know how Silver manipulated the Doncic trade.

NBA = WWE

I thought this had been known for a long time already. That 2006 series was filthy from a reffing standpoint. Danny Crawford's reffing history with the Mavs in the playoffs is one of the most outrageous (non) statisical outliers in NBA history, the league hated Cuban. I've called 2006 the Dwayne Wade free throw parade for almost 20 years now. I was shocked the NBA even let the Mavs get it in 2011 but the Heat were so rattled in game 6 they couldn't even convert the free throws they kept being given, even Wade, and the phantom fouls actually backfired. Donaghy had said that fixing a game is really a 75/25 proposition because of how many factors there are. I think the Mavs rolled the 25 on the league's last chance at that series and I still remember how infuriated David Stern looked in the stands in the final couple of minutes once it was clear it was over. It was one of the funniest moments in NBA history

Not sure a convicted felon has alot of credibility.