More Controversy

If there was one thing that I wish would happen during these NBA finals, it's that the officials would just let the players play. Every little call is being made and it makes for some of the worst Finals that the NBA has had. At least in quite a while. What's even worst than that is all of the call that they are making that are so controversial. It makes for a bad game. These officials that are in the finals have been doing officiating for almost 30 years a piece. They know what's going on. So why are they making such bad and controversial calls. Lets look back at game 5 with 1.9 seconds to go in OT.

The call that the Official Joe DeRosa made was that Josh Howard called for a time out while Dwyane Wade was making two free throws. The call came after the 1st free throw that Wade made. Joe DeRosa said that Josh Howard called for a time out. The official statement was that Howard not only went up to Joe DeRosa once, but twice asking for a time out. It's ironic that if you go back and look at he video of the actual play, you can see Howard make the universal time out sign, and Howard never denies that he did that. However, Howard goes on to say that he was talking to Coach Avery Johnson to confirm when the timeout was to be taken. He never even looks at Joe DeRosa and motions to him that he wants a timeout. For Joe DeRosa even to say that Howard came up to him twice is almost like a slap in the face to Dallas. If that was true, I wonder why he would even have to come up to you twice in the first place. Wouldn't you have called it after the first time. The fact is that the videos(all 3 or 4 different angles) never show Howard even looking in the direction of Joe DeRosa. Not once. So how Joe DeRosa ever even came up with the conclusion that Howard actually came up to him twice is way beyond me. It just really bothers me when officials make claims that you can clearly see never happened. It's obvious when a player signals an official for a time out. You can see a player clearly going up to the nearest official and forming the timeout sign right in the officials face. Clear as day.

Here's another interesting thing that happened with that call. Joe Crawford actually disregarded the call made by Joe DeRosa telling every player to get back on the line so that Wade could shoot his second free throw. You know, Joe Crawford has been an NBA Official for 30 years now. I think that he knew that no team would take a time out at that point and that's why he was telling the players to go back to their postings and let Wade shoot. However, Joe DeRosa insisted that Howard told him that he wanted a time out so that's what they got. That in turn made Dallas inbound the ball in from the backcourt instead of the sideline at halfcourt. Everybody knows that you don't ask for a time out when you only have one time out left anyway. At least not when a player is shooting 2 free throws, you know that your going to be down one point and you have 1.9 seconds left to play. I think some trashy calling has been going on with some officials and there is no way that you can convince me that Howard really wanted a time out at that point. He knows the game and when to call timeouts. He's a pro and he knows when to call and when not to call. Simple as that.

I just wonder if for at least one game in this series that we could have a clean game. No stupid calls, no suspensions for stupid reasons, no nothing. I wish that I could see at least one game that wasn't so controversial. It's the Finals. Two teams are playing for a title that neither team has ever won. Of coarse it's going to be more intense than regular season games. IT"S THE FINALS! The "Finals" alone should say it all.