The NBA is the worst officiated sport in the entire world.

[Tim Kempton]

Just what this board needed the most - another thread to whine about the refs.

No offense, but this is easy to say when your team doesn't matter. I feel bad for Heat fans right now. Last night was egregious.

[NZB2323]

If you follow college basketball you know their refs are worse. It’s really hard to officiate under the current rules, if an offensive player launched himself into a defensive player and there’s some contact, what is the correct call?

[Pumpkin17]

There were bad calls for both teams last night and Butler was the primary beneficiary in the last minutes.

Nonetheless, Heat are blowing a 3-0 lead in one of the most epic chokejob ever.

Stop whining and grow up.

[Lunartic]

As a long time Celtics fan - there was no bias and anyone that provides evidence that the refs gave the Celtics an advantage are just lying and should be banned from Realgm asap.

Please close the thread, we don't need more divisiveness or to talk about the league rigging the series to ensure it goes to 7. All videos posted by OP are likely ai enhanced if not outright fakes.

[Bergmaniac]

Just what this board needed the most - another thread to whine about the refs.

No offense, but this is easy to say when your team doesn't matter. I feel bad for Heat fans right now. Last night was egregious.

There is a sticky thread for the series where most of the discussion all day has been about the calls and another active thread here on the GB about the poor refeering in Game 6, there was absolutely no need for another thread on this topic.

[Lalouie]

less calls = tougher players
less calls = less bad calls

play on

[payton2kemp]

Butler double dribbles and then launches himself forward in an unnatural shooting motion. Gets 3 free throws to go ahead with 3 seconds left.

Read on Twitter

We can go back and forth doing this all day. With every NBA game in history.

lol he pretty much jumps into Horford to get that call, Heat got the more favorable whistle last night, OP just bitter they lost.

Blame Jimmy and Bam for shooting something like 7-40

[GQ Hot Dog]

This is great defense by White. Definitely not a foul. As you point out, it should have been out of bounds off Butler, Celtics ball but was Boston really going to use a challenge on that? Maybe if White had more demonstratively played up that he didn't touch the ball but more importantly than a missed out of bounds, it was a fantastic no call by the refs. Top flight reffing in that regard.

In another important play, Jimmy goes up and is fouled by White. The refs call a "block" and out on Boston. White NEVER MAKES CONTACT WITH THE BALL. It should be foul on White, or out on Heat and Boston ball. How the hell is this Miami ball? It is a foul on White or it clearly goes out on Butler. The refs just REFUSE to call a foul, so they call a phantom block and give Miami the ball.

Read on Twitter

[NBA4Lyfe]

Easily the worst refs among the 4 major american sports leagues. And as a long time harden fan this series killed my soul. Rockets winning this series would have changed how we view morey, harden and mike dantoni today. But the nba was making too much money with warriors vs cavs so unfortunately the rockets got screwed. Scott foster reffed both game 1 and game 7 of the 2018 wcf which were both rockets losses.( this series in my opinion was the last time harden actually seriously cared about winning a ring)

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[payton2kemp]

Fans have been crying about officiating much louder than this dating back to the Blazers/Lakers playoff games. Nothing new, fans team loses and they cry wolf.

[soxfan2003]

The league is to blame for creating a difficult game to officiate. The more discretionary calls, the refs are forced to make, the more the players realize they can get away with things which makes refs jobs even tougher.

How to start to fix it? Don't allow any players that are dribbling to extend one of their arms to push off. Call it an immediate offensive foul every time regardless of situation and allow infinite challenges for this unnecessary contact. If the team challenging is making it up, give a free throw to the other team. Within 1 month if the league truly sticks with this, offensive players with ball in their hands would never ever push off.

Call fouls every time on defenders that reach out with their hand below their own heads to put their hands on the opposing teams jersey/arms/whatever even if the touch is as light as a feather. The Butler 3 point attempt wouldn't have been controversial. Horford fouled him with over 3 seconds left by touching his jersey when that shouldn't be allowed at all. By allowing this even in a post hand check NBA, it just makes the game tougher to ref since the refs are having to determine how egregious the contact was and that is obviously very difficult with all of the other violations they need to officiate.

Very minor contact from defenders when they are using their feet and not hands should be let go.

[ItsDanger]

Don't care who won last night, but the refs were awful last night. Repeating standard sore loser BS is apathetic

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

The league is to blame for creating a difficult game to officiate. The more discretionary calls, the refs are forced to make, the more the players realize they can get away with things which makes refs jobs even tougher.

How to start to fix it? Don't allow any players that are dribbling to extend one of their arms to push off. Call it an immediate offensive foul every time regardless of situation and allow infinite challenges for this unnecessary contact. If the team challenging is making it up, give a free throw to the other team. Within 1 month if the league truly sticks with this, offensive players with ball in their hands would never ever push off.

Call fouls every time on defenders that reach out with their hand below their own heads to put their hands on the opposing teams jersey/arms/whatever even if the touch is as light as a feather. The Butler 3 point attempt wouldn't have been controversial. Horford fouled him with over 3 seconds left by touching his jersey when that shouldn't be allowed at all. By allowing this even in a post hand check NBA, it just makes the game tougher to ref since the refs are having to determine how egregious the contact was and that is obviously very difficult with all of the other violations they need to officiate.

Very minor contact from defenders when they are using their feet and not hands should be let go.

Good post, but I think with gambling and point shaving and all this now as a reality.... i don't know how anyone can enforce this.

[Jkam31]

Butler double dribbles and then launches himself forward in an unnatural shooting motion. Gets 3 free throws to go ahead with 3 seconds left.

Read on Twitter

We can go back and forth doing this all day. With every NBA game in history.

Nba is a clown league

[ArksNetsSince99]

Probably one of the hardest sports to officiate

Yeah tell me more about , like is hard in 2023 in age of amazing technology glue a sensor inside the ball to determine if the shot was blocked while ball was going upwards or downwards, but why ?

Why take the opportunity from the refs to decide there is 2 points or not in a close game ? ( I believe there was one very close call in Lakers vs Nuggets series )

Like op said NBA is worse than FIFA and FIFA is known the most as old minded and shady organization

I understand that there will be mistakes from time to time but having technology in billion dollars business and not using it is either damn stupid , or NBA have interest in not using it , it’s probably the latter

[Jkam31]

I don’t want to believe that the NBA is rigged as an organization because I would simply just lose interest in it. Having said that, this is the first year I can remember that I watch games (not just Heat games, I’m talking about for and against other teams as well) and I can literally notice the refs flagrantly controlling the outcome of the game. When they want to they stifle any run, video reviews are useless because they find a way to explain it, they ignore obvious calls. It’s so evident that it’s not even trying to be hidden anymore. Allowing betting may be the worst thing that ever happened to basketball.

Minimum contact lmao then give Jokic a 4th foul for the same thing

[MorbidHEAT]

There were bad calls for both teams last night and Butler was the primary beneficiary in the last minutes.

Nonetheless, Heat are blowing a 3-0 lead in one of the most epic chokejob ever.

Stop whining and grow up.

I would say that there were def way more bad calls against the Heat, but yes…def an epic choke job.

[Up-And-Coming]

Celtics fans were crying so much when the Lakers were supposedly getting the benefit of the whistle I don’t feel bad for them now that the Heat and other fans are complaining

…even though the truth is there’s good and bad calls in every game

[Jables]

I'm rooting against the Heat just for the drama, but I mean they aren't wrong. It's like what part of "the hardest sport to officiate" necessitates calling ghost fouls? There are giant reddit threads when Scott Foster gets assigned to a playoff series and the losing team starts sweating. No other league has less trust in referees. The thing about the double dribble is I never see that called anyway, refs just don't do their job.

[scrabbarista]

Easily the worst refs among the 4 major american sports leagues. And as a long time harden fan this series killed my soul. Rockets winning this series would have changed how we view morey, harden and mike dantoni today. But the nba was making too much money with warriors vs cavs so unfortunately the rockets got screwed. Scott foster reffed both game 1 and game 7 of the 2018 wcf which were both rockets losses.( this series in my opinion was the last time harden actually seriously cared about winning a ring)

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Anyone naive enough to believe the NBA isn't rigged should have to watch both of those games over and over until they understand reality.

Not long after Game 7, I did a review of all of the calls and non-calls that were missed and I think the potential swing (depending on if free throws had been made and teams had scored on bad calls that resulted in a loss of possession) was somewhere in the range of 45-55 points. Just for Game 7.