We Don’t Want To Hear This Punk Ass Shit

The Blazers should call the police and file a report against the NBA officials for grand theft game because the game against the Jazz Friday night was stolen from them. The Blazers lost 117-114 to Utah on the non call heard round the country.

Damian Lillard went up for a layup in an attempt to tie the game. He was met from behind by Royce O’neale who jumped into him. A blatant foul. The ball left Lillard’s hand before hitting the backboard and curving toward the basket. It was on the way down, it had touched the glass, then Rudy Gobert knocked it away. An easy goaltend call.

Yet, there was no whistle on either the foul or the goaltend. No whistle on such a critical play in the last moments of the game and no call? Officials are supposed to blow the whistle so the play becomes reviewable, else it cannot be reviewed, as per a useless NBA rule.

No such whistle came. The refs just stood there claiming as players later stated, “that it wasn’t even close.” But, it was more than close. It was obvious. The officials fucked up. Damian Lillard let them know it. In all the time I have watched him play, I have never seen him so angry. He unleashed on them, perhaps the biggest explosion from the Northwest since Mt St.Helens, and had to be escorted off the court by Blazers staff.

The anger continued in the locker room and not just from Lillard. Multiple teammates issued their displease. Coach Stotts said he was proud of his players in his postgame conference and that “it’s just a shame that it was decided on an inexcusable missed call. There’s no other way to describe it. They could have called goaltending and reviewed it. But they swallowed their whistles on a play that was pretty obvious. So it’s disappointing that such a great effort was decided by that.”

Jazz players laughed it up in their interviews not wanting to talk about it, hiding from the fact they got showed up by half a team. They admitted they would be angry if it happened to them. Gobert admitted it was a goaltend.

Then the most infuriating part of this, one of the officials released a statement admitting they had made a mistake and missed the call:

“It was not reviewable since no goaltending call was made on the floor. Goaltending is only reviewable if we actually call it. The call needs to be made for a goaltending to be reviewable. We’ve since looked at it, via postgame video review, and unfortunately saw that we missed the play and a goaltending violation should’ve been called.”

Oopsie. Our bad. That’s it, that is all the Blazers will hear from the league about it. A two minute report saying they messed up. What fucking good does that do. As Lillard has stated, the Blazers are in the run for the playoffs in a contentious western conference race and the refs stole the game from them. I concur with Lillard’s response to all this. “We don’t want to hear this punk ass shit.”

The officials fucked up. The NBA needs to make it right. The last moments of that game need to be replayed when Utah comes to Portland in April for game 4 of the season series. (And I wouldn’t want to be the Utah Jazz in Portland right now)

The NBA is an expert at ignoring mistakes. At issuing apologies and carrying on. No consequences for officials who mess up, when in every other major sports league officials are held responsible. Not this time. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver can’t make this one go away. It played out on national tv, primetime. Everyone saw it. Social media blew up afterwards. Woj, Steven A. Smith, players and ex players around the league, Blazers fans, fans of other teams…everyone and their grandmas.

And, that last call was just the tip of the iceberg in a game plagued with missed calls and mistakes. Earlier in the 1st half, Royce O’Neale took out Anfernee Simons with a flagrant Cobra Kai leg sweep, causing Simons to fall and hit his head and have to leave the game in concussion protocol. (Are you proud of your guy Coach Snyder?)

Trevor Ariza was fouled multiple times without calls and went off on an official, only to be ejected. Carmelo Anthony nearly had his shoulder separated by O’Neale and was assessed a technical foul. There was a missed 8 second violation on the Jazz late in the fourth. Utah had a free possession with 1:43 left in the game with the shot clock off. The list goes on.

Something needs to be done about this. Hopefully, the Blazers contest this with the league. They shouldn’t even have too. Adam Silver needs to make this right. Fix the rule so this doesn’t happen again. Suspend Royce O’neale for purposely injuring Anfernee Simons and trying to injure Carmelo Anthony. Have the last moments of this game be replayed with the goaltend and foul instated.

And, there is precedent. Th. Atlanta Hawks and Miami heat replayed the last 59.1 seconds of a game back in 2008, after the Officials made a mistake and had Shaquille O’neal as fouled out when he was in fact not. David stern was commissioner then. So, Silver follow in footsteps of your predecessor and have this game replayed. We don’t want your apologies. They are meaningless. We don’t want to hear that punk ass shit.