NBA FINALS: The Refs Tightened Up Calls Against The Warriors In Games 3, 4 and 5 To Avoid Blowouts

As a Golden State Warriors fan who watched at least 50 regular season games and every playoff game, I found the calls against the Warriors in Games 3, 4 and 5 to be quite different than how the referees called Warrior games during the season and the first three rounds of the playoffs.

The Warriors, as a team, play team defense and rely on their own quickness, reactions and communication to stifle their opponents. The Warriors are not a big bruising team that regularly gets into foul trouble.

Yet, in Games 3 and 4 of The Finals, the Warriors found themselves in foul trouble early, and many of those calls could be considered questionable or ticky-tack in nature or at the very least one sided against the Warriors.

Push offs by LeBron James, moving screens by J.R. Smith and Kevin Love, shirt pulling by Kevin Love, and the usual knock downs of Steph Curry by several Cavaliers players went uncalled, yet clean blocks by Draymond Green, clear defensive positioning by Draymond Green and Kevin Durant and clean ball swipes by Klay Thompson got called.

Early foul trouble took the Warriors out of their game, especially in Game 4, when three Warrior players had 2 fouls each in the first quarter and the Cavs took 22 free throws – an NBA record.

Yes, the Cavs’ shooting was incredible in Game 4, and they must be commended for that, but their hot shooting was a direct response to the softer defense that they faced because the Warriors had to lay off on the defensive end or face the wrath of the referees’ whistle.

Clearly, NBA league officials stepped in and communicated their desire for a Game 5 in The Finals to the referees. I do not have direct proof of this, but proof of clear bias by the referees, which favored the Cavs, was visible for all who watched the game. Every time the Warriors started making a run or cutting the Cavs’ lead to less than 15 points, the referees whistles started blowing. Yet, despite that, the Warriors still made a game of it until around 3:00 left in the fourth quarter.

Game 5 started off much the same way, but the Warriors kept their composure, overcame numerous bad calls, and battled through all the way to a Finals Series win.

My point here is that if the referees didn’t step in to make Games 3, 4 and 5 closer, the Warriors would have won those games by 20 points each, and the games would have proceeded like they did in Games 1 and 2, and that a Game 5 would not have been played. The Warriors had a superior team, superior tactics, superior team play and superior coaching. The Warriors clearly deserved to win the Series and they must also go down as one of the greatest teams in NBA history.

Unfortunately, the NBA didn’t like that narrative for their own commercial interests, and although they earned an additional $20 million from Game 5, they again, for the second year in a row, left millions of fans with the feeling that the NBA will rig games for a few extra dollars.