Grizzlies Luck....Grrrrr!

Or Taste That "Home Cookin"!

My poor Grizzlies. Here they are, in the middle of what should hopefully be a 2nd straight playoff-bound season (which was unthinkable 3 years ago), playing on a road trip without 3 starters (one of which is the "star" of the team, and leading scorer), and they get robbed. Not at the hotel, not on the bus, but on the court.

Here's what happened: The Kings beat the Grizzlies on a last-second shot. The game had been tied, and there was only like 1.6 seconds left. Sacramento was inbounding the ball, which would call for the clock to start when the ball is first touched. How it played out was this: they inbounded to their guy--the clock started--and said guy turned around and threw up a prayer (which went in). What REALLY happened was that the inbounds pass was DEFLECTED by a Grizzlies player into the air (this should've started the clock). By the time the Kings guy gets it, there isn't enough time to fire off the shot (SportsCenter did a great on-screen experiment; they basically put up their own clock over the real-time highlight, and clearly he wouldn't had time to get the shot off). Now we go to overtime. Thing is: Replay showed it clearly. All the players knew what happened. The explanation from the officials was basically, "Yep, the clock dude screwed up, but we can't overturn that kind of error. Sorry. You win some, you lose some. Better luck next time."

Now, I'm not down on the NBA. This ain't an accusation that the games are fixed a la WWE Smackdown. It's just that I cannot believe that at this level, with technology as it is, with high-paid players and stakes that are high (playoff berths, championships, etc), that a game is essentially determined by a correctable human error. I understand that fouls and "super stars will get that call everytime" type of thinking (I don't agree with it, but I guess it's consistent). But in this case, the clock is supposed to start when a player touches the ball. Period. Obviously the hometown clock operator is watching for HIS guy to touch the ball, but other stuff can happen. Watch the replay. I understand that you can't say, at that point, "Well, he probably didn't have time to get a shot off if it was done right," but at least acknowledge the blatant error and wipe off the result of the play (i.e., at least replay the incident). Sure, there are a ton of "What if's" in the scenario, but the bottom line is that a friendly "oops, I messed up--but the team won, so what's the big deal" slip of the hand or finger shouldn't determine the outcome of an NBA contest.