After watching Arizona give away the Super Bowl to Pittsburgh, I could not help but feel for the five or six Cardinals fans out there. With 10 seconds left, Kurt Warner goes back to launch a Hail Marry, is hit, and loses the ball. The referees rule it a fumble and the Steelers immediately down the ball, game over. Was it a fumble? Was it an incomplete pass? Doesn’t matter, the “right” team won. How did the referees review every questionable play, and there were a lot of them, except the one that decided the game? Unfortunately, to beat the team that ‘should win,’ a smaller market team cannot leave anything to chance.
Game 5, Western Conference Finals, Los Angeles Lakers at San Antonio Spurs, May 13, 2004
.4 seconds remaining, Tim Duncan just hit an unbelievable shot with lots of contact but no call to put the Spurs up 73-72. The Lakers call a timeout to advance the ball. Gary Payton is throwing the ball in. The Spurs do a good job of covering Shaq and Kobe, but Derek Fisher streaks free. Gary passes the ball, Derek catches it running away from the basket, turns his body towards the hoop, jumps backwards and sinks the shot. Clearly, there is no way he was able to catch, contort, jump, and shoot in .4 seconds. But the game clock did not start on time, it went in, and the “right” team won. I maintain that if a smaller market team wins by 5, it means that they were 10-15 points better that night. The refs will influence the game so that the bigger market team will gain 5-10 points through missed calls and bad calls. As a Spurs fan, I’ve witnessed it over and over again. I have come to accept it. If you are going after the champ, you better knock him out, because if you don’t the score cards are not going to be in your favor. So, to the five or six Cardinal fans out there, this Spurs fan feels your pain.
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