dcstanley wrote:GrandTheftRondo wrote:xinxin wrote: 
its just been egregious this season; especially against the lakers..
the league must be trying to say something.
Yeah the league wants the small market Lakers with one of the least popular players of all time to flounder….
 
I don't agree with the conspiracies but I take it you didn't watch the game tonight. The Celtics had about three soft calls in a row during crunch-time, including an iffy and-one to tie the game. Lebron was absolutely hacked and the refs swallowed their whistles. You can't blame Laker fans for their incredulity. Imo there's an implicit bias against Lebron because of how big and strong he is, if he's not accentuating contact the refs are likely not going to call it.
 
This is basically what homecourt/field advantage is. Across all sports, officials are inherently biased for the home team, for obvious reasons. On top of that, they're going to screw up just by virtue of being human beings. So all the conspiracy talk gets tiring when we have a much more obvious explanation: basic human incompetence. Players are going to dribble the ball off their foot and miss layups, and officials are going to blow calls. 
You just hope they don't blow the blatantly obvious ones in critical situations and that obviously didn't happen tonight, and that's where the frustration comes from. Especially when it's like the third or fourth instance where it's happened recently.