[cinemablend]

I can't remember the last time I saw a game this badly reffed. Just... unbelievable. What's really unbelievable is that even after they'd watch replays (sometimes even replays which they weren't supposed to use)... which very clearly showed the right call... they still made the wrong one.

The flagrant on Damp was ridiculous. He barely moved his arm and half the reason he moved it at all was because Brook was pulling it towards him as he fell. Damp clearly didn't even know what was going on or who was behind him or where they were... he couldn't since he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head.

Jet's clear path foul was just... beyond stupid. How can he commit a clear path foul when he is CLEARLY the first person over the half-court line? It wasn't even close. Worse he was between the player and the basket the whole time. Even if the Ref didn't see who crossed the line first you could see that he was in front of the guy every second. Makes no sense.

The technical on Kidd I still don't get. The replay showed him doing nothing. He just stood there, he didn't even say anything after the collision. Unless the technical was for the collision? But it seemed like it was called afterward. Tim Thomas rushed in and made it look like something but it wasn't.

The Marion traveling call... I'm still not sure. Didn't look like a travel to me but at least you could sort of see how a ref might screw that up. But combined with all the other crap that went down tonight, just awful.

I'm not normally one to complain about refs, but the loss tonight was not the team's fault. The officiating crew was determined to make sure the Mavs loss... whether because they were incompetent or malicious I don't know.

The worst thing about all of these calls is that they weren't split second decisions which were wrong, or stuff made on the fly or things the refs just didn't see right. In almost every case, the refs stopped the game, sat there in a huddle and then methodically decided to misapply the rules after watching replays which showed them the opposite of what they decided. I can't remember ever seeing anything quite like it before.

And what was with that last huddle of theirs, where the Refs had themselves surrounded by security to... what... protect themselves from the players? Something seriously weird was going on tonight.