I sat down late last night (after returning from the monthly handicapping seminar I host at Winnipeg’s Assiniboia Downs), with no Stanley Cup or NBA final on the tube, no football and not even a decent baseball game, and watched “The Fixers.”
No, not the “The Fixer,” the 1968 Bernard Malamud/Dalton Trumbo epic starring Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm, but The Fixers, a DVD of Game 6 of the 2002 NBA final featuring the officiating of Dick Bavetta, Ted Bernhardt and Bob Delaney.
This week, there has been plenty of talk about that game. It started when Tim Donaghy, the referee with the gambling problem, filed papers in the Brooklyn, N.Y., Federal Court stating that games in the 2002 and 2005 playoffs had been rigged by the Association. Since then, most major American newspapers have looked at the game again and determined — to their own benefit, of course — that the game wasn’t fixed, but as Richard Sandomir of the New York Times wrote: “What I discovered was a master class in bad calls, missed calls and miscalls that was sloppy enough to undermine the notion that it was planned ineptitude.”
Nice turn of phrase, but absolutely wrong. At least, from I re-watched last night.
No NBA official can be that bad and keep his job unless the Association told him what to do. Case in point? The Sacramento Kings were leading the series 3-2, they were at home and they were heavily favoured, but in the fourth quarter, the Los Angeles Lakers were awarded 27 free throws, scoring 16 of their final 18 points at the line to even the series, a series they went on to win at home.
Overall, the Lakers took 40 free throws to the Kings 25 that night and both Kings’ big men, Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard fouled out. No Lakers fouled out. Not one. After the game, Sacramento coach Rick Adelman said: “I feel sorry for our team, because they did everything they could to win the game. It’s a shame, a real shame. … Our big guys get 20 fouls, and Shaq gets four. You tell me. Obviously, they got the game called the way they wanted to get it called.”
Sadly, because the mainstream media is a collection of pack journalists who don’t bother to ask big questions of big executives anymore, most of them just went along their merry way, calling Adelman a crybaby.
While no one in Sacramento will admit it now — because the league’s shaky integrity and commissioner David Stern’s career is on the line — the outcome of that game was painfully, yet obviously pre-determined.
Here’s an example of some of the fourth-quarter miscalls…
1. The Kings Mike Bibby is knocked to the floor — no call.
2. Derek Fisher takes out two defenders to allow Kobe Bryant a clear route to the hoop for a layup — no call.
3. At the end of the play there is meaningless contact from Pollard AFTER the ball is laid in. Pollard gets his fifth foul, Bryant gets a three-point play.
4. Pollard fouls out on a play described by Bill Walton thusly: “Oh, that’s not a foul. I’m sorry.” Shaquille O’Neal goes to the line and makes both free throws.
5. With 12 seconds left, Bryant takes an inbounds pass. He runs over Bibby, elbows him in the face, drops him to the hardwood, leaves him with a bloody nose and is awarded two free throws after incidental contact by Doug Christie. It was the phoniest thing I’ve ever seen in a major professional team sport.
Sorry NBA, the officiating wasn’t bad that night, it was WWE-like — without the actual script. I thought it was phony at the time and now that Donaghy has said it was pre-determined, it’s hard not to agree.
And don’t hand me this, “He’s a convicted felon,” line. If it wasn’t wasn’t for the testimony of convicted felons, the feds would not have taken down a long list of New York, New Jersey, Detroit and Chicago mafia dons.
Unless somebody who still has a job talks, we’ll never really know. But frankly, the NBA is a sport I already have trouble watching without a jaundiced eye and after watching that Game 6 from 2002 again, I just can’t conclude that the Association is on the level.
Interestingly, the day after the game, Michael Wilbon wrote the following sentence in the Washington Post: “I have never seen officiating in a game of consequence as bad as that in Game 6.”
No, Michael, it wasn’t bad. It was a fix. They knew it at the time and they know it today. And this has to be the end of David Stern’s reign.
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