It will be interesting to see how the refs call this game; after what happened at the end of game 1.
Will the refs make-up for game 1 and give game 2 (and possibly the series) to Denver or continue with one-sided officiating?
Isn't Dick Bavetta a loyal company man for Stern? This won't be a blowout then.
Tim Donaghy's tale of Dick Bavetta
With veteran official Dick Bavetta, the charge is much different.
Donaghy portrays Bavetta as a genial NBA veteran and faithful company man who wants to facilitate a quality entertainment product every night. Since fans generally find a close game more compelling, Bavetta made a deliberate effort to keep the contest competitive, according to Donaghy.
Early in the book, Donaghy tells the story of being at his brother’s birthday party while there’s a Bavetta-officiated game on television:
“Watch,” I told my brother. “Anytime Bavetta referees, you’ll rarely see a blowout. When a team gets up by 20, he starts blowing the whistle like crazy.” And sure enough, that’s what happened -- one team got way ahead before Bavetta whistled the other team back into contention.
According to Donaghy, Bavetta’s tendency for keeping games close made him a favorite of the League. It also gave Donaghy an opportunity to capitalize:
From my earliest involvement with Bavetta, I learned that he likes to keep games close, and that when a team gets down by double-digit points, he helps the players save face. He accomplishes this act of mercy by quietly, and frequently, blowing the whistle on the team that’s having the better night. Team fouls suddenly become one-sided between the contestants, and the score begins to tighten up. That’s the way Dick Bavetta referees a game -- and everyone in the league knew it.
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So let’s look at this in the most practical context: Would betting on the underdog in games where the spread was seven or more points and Bavetta was the official have been a profitable strategy?
If you had bet on the underdog all of the games in which Bavetta was an official and in which one of the teams was favored to win by seven or more points, your bet would have paid off only 46.2 percent of the games. This would have caused you to, on average, lose about 11.8 percent of the money that you bet, on average.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... ck-bavetta