Quote from: DaveBrown74 on Today at 07:37:11 PMThe call stood up to the challenge. Refs make mistakes all the time in real time, but it's hard to believe an NBA playoff ref didn't understand the NBA rule book when he was watching the play frame-by-frame on a close up replay. If an infraction was not committed there, it seems extremely likely the ref would have seen that in the replay and overturned it.
As for willfully allowing a clear infraction just because it's the final minute or two of a close game, that's a matter of fan opinion and a controversial subject. I understand the spirit of that argument, but it's a slippery slope if you just start allowing anything to happen just because it's late. Which rules should get enforced and which shouldn't?
None of that makes it a good call in the final seconds of a playoff basketball game that had been officiated pretty loosely up until that point - as playoffs games should be.
Who knows if the Pacers would have made a shot or won the game had that call not been made. But that's the point. We'll never know, because the refs took that away from the teams and the fans.
It was a ticky tack call, and those types of calls shouldn't be how playoff games end. Let the players decide it.