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Here’s The Iffy Foul That Has The City Of Boston Losing Its Mind This Morning

by Eric Goldschein | 9:00 am, May 15th, 2012

With 10 seconds remaining in Game 2, the Sixers were clinging to an unlikely three point lead. The Celtics inbounded the ball, put their play into motion, and suddenly a whistle blew. Okay, a foul, that makes sense. Wait… an offensive foul? On… Kevin Garnett? Game… basically over? Yes: the Celtics went on to lose by one point. Womp womp.

Here’s video of the foul, which came much to the surprise of announcers Dick Stockton and Chris Webber, and to the chagrin of every Celtics fan the world over:

Regardless of the foul’s merit, it was certainly an unexpected call. You rarely see offensive fouls of the moving screen variety called in crunch time. But yeah: that was, by the letter of the law, a foul. If you don’t call that, Pierce has an unearned, wide-open look at the basket, and The Truth knows how to knock those down.

Of course, this is all hypothetical. If the foul wasn’t called, maybe Pierce comes off the screen, misses the three, and Boston loses anyway. But regardless, Boston fans are probably none too happy with the inconsistency.

We’ll see what kind of breaks the Sixers will catch in Game 3, which is in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

h/t ProBasketballTalk

Anonymous

We’ll see what kind of breaks the Sixers will catch in Game 3

This is funny. Paul Pierce has gotten away with 4- and 5-step shuffle travels in virtually every Celtics game I’ve watched over the past 5 years (along with numerous other NBA players, but Pierce’s are the most egregious and frequent.)
Why doesn’t David Stern meet with all you “SITUATIONAL-ANARCHY!!!” NBA fans so you can draw up a completely separate set of rules inside the last two minutes of every game? Doesn’t that sound fun?

They can be player specific (e.g. Whenever LeBron flails as if he was just hit with a Kalishnakov, he is guaranteed two shots, regardless of circumstance or merit), team specific (e.g. If the Celtics are down by more than one possession in the playoffs, they are allowed to commit as many uncalled-flagrant 2′s as necessary in order to make it a close game), or based on the ever-popular (and wildly inaccurate) nostalgic myth of a time when players could bodyslam each other and not get called for fouls (e.g. playoff games will feature random objects that can be used as weapons; examples include two-by-fours with nails hanging out, television sets and bowling balls, because back in the 80′s that’s what the Pistons did and it was funner to watch even though it severely degraded the quality of basketball being played, not to mention the incredible risk of severe injury posed to (huge) players who are allowed to crash into each other, but hey, click on our next story about NFL concussions!)

What’s so wrong with expecting a foul to be called regardless of time of season or game situation? They play with the same court dimensions, same sized hoop, same sized ball inside of two minutes. There is no reason they shouldn’t be playing with the same rules.
Anonymous

This is what sucks about sports, that, for some reason, just because it’s in the final minute, or seconds or what have you, fouls/penalties that would, should and are called at any other point in the game, should not be called then.

“Just let them play” is bullshit.

A foul is a foul is a foul. The game should be called the same whether it’s the first minute or the last minute.

BTW, not a Sixers or Celtics fan, just an upset fan in general at this idea of refereeing that permeates all sports.
Anonymous

My problem with the call isn’t that it was made right then and there-but why isn’t that same call made consistently the other 50 times it happens every game. People could understand the call better if it were called consistently. Anyone that didn’t think it was an illegal screen doesn’t know what one is, frankly. Of course it was an offensive foul-now just call it every other time it happens.
Piece80

This celtics team has always playe dirty. Nice to see them being held accountable for their illegal play.