The Hack-a-Shaq may have only given Shaq 4 free throws, but it put Dallas into the penalty a lot earlier than they would have been normally.

Dallas has had its games with a lot more free throws than the Heat. It hasn't been a one-way fix for Miami, not by a long shot.

Lingo we're talking 24 more FTs. And, the Hack-a-Shaq was employed while already in the penalty except for in OT which didn't account for any FTs because Wade's phantom call was whistled on the shot.

And as far as the Mavs getting their share of calls, the Heat have shot 38 more FTs in this series, and Dallas has only had more attempts in a game once. Again, I understand the offense dictates many of these calls, but the types of plays whistled are not consistent at each end.

If this were a BYU-Utah game and there was this much disparity there would be officials dangling by their whistles.

Ya, Howard must have had a big bet riding in Vegas. Two missed free throws at the end of the game... come on. And that timeout. It's becoming a trend with him. At Wake Forest Howard called a timeout he didn't have with just under two seconds left against Maryland. There was a resulting technical foul and Juan Dixon made a free throw to win the game. Sound familiar? He's been betting on his own games for a while now. :p

I am still confused as to what happened with that timeout. It looked like Avery was signaling for the timeout and Howard just did what he was asked. Then, after he called timeout, Avery tried to waive it off. Avery clearly does the timeout signal before Howard called timeout. What is the story?

As far I understand it, Avery was saying that he wanted the TO called after the second free throw, so that they could advance the ball up past half court. I'm not that familiar with all of the finer points of the rule book in this area, but that is what I got out of it.

I actually thought the game was fairly well called. The fact that there is a disparity in the number of fouls called on each team is not, in and of itself, indicative of poor officiating. It seemed to me that Miami just works harder to get to the basket, and they have some very big people working down low too. That will lead to a lot of free throws if they are doing their job. I didn't see a lot of really bad calls last night.

The bottomline is that if the officiating is that visible, meaning the officials are bigger than the game itself, there is a problem. Just because it is a foul doesn't mean it needs to be whistled. I'd rather have Bevetta over Crawford any day of the week. Ask Barkley how he feels about Joey. I wish the TNT crew was running the halftime and post game reports.

Okay, coming out and declaring your support of Bavetta is enough to convince me you are messed up when it comes to the NBA.

Thanks for making it so clear.

Bavetta over Crawford any day of the week. Bavetta may just be old and blind, but he's not vengeful like Crawford who officiates at times like he's after a certain player. He needs to suck on his whistle a bit more than blow it.

It's not really support either. It's more like voting in the presidential election. All the candidates are poor, just choosing the best of the worst.

Fair enough. The lesser of two evils, I suppose.

Makes sense to me.